My name is Podrigotuma and when I go through a difficult time where a meeting goes in a difficult

way or I just have woken up on the wrong side of the bed, I try to write from that feeling.

I put it into a poem and rarely do those poems ever get shared with anyone but there's

such a helpful thing in seeing what I'm feeling on a page that helps me feel seen and also

then helps me perhaps move beyond or through the experience that I'm living with.

Our poem today comes from Margaret Newton, a poet who writes in Anishina Bimoan and the poem

that she has written is called Gimmar's Nibbimun which translates as a message to you.

We have her voice bringing this poem to us today in the original language, Anishina Bimoan,

as well as in the translation.

A message to you. I know there are different worlds because our ancestors sent the messages,

because lost lovers now live in them, because you just said that right now. Are you the carved

shoreline and eye, the sweet water sea, or am I the shifting wind you cannot perceive?

I was really drawn to this book, my Margaret Newton, what the chickadee knows because there's about

ten chickadees who live in my backyard. I feed them every day and then watch their antics and

watch their acrobatics and watch them weave in and out between larger birds as they pick up

seeds and then take those seeds off into the bushes where they store a stash before eating them

or sharing them. And so I see these little birds every day, small, cheeky, funny, so present,

so filled with energy, so alert, and so acrobatic in their dexterity. So I was thrilled to find this

book by her and thought, oh, I'd often find a poem about the particular bird. But then when I

read through the book, I kept on coming back to this one particular poem, a message to you.

And I think I was mostly intrigued thinking, who is the you? Who is this speaking to? Is it just one

person? Is it someone she misses? Is it someone where there was a difficult relationship?

...