Ozaagi’aan One Open to an Other

Gizaagi’in apii zaagi’idizoyan
I love you when you love yourself

gaye gaawiin zaagi’idizosiiyan
and when you do not

apii zaagijiba’iweyang
when we escape together

gaye zaagijinizhikawangwaa
and when we chase together

wiindigoog wiindamoonangwaa
the demons who tell us

gaawiin zaagiginzinog ozaagiing
nothing sprouts at the inlet

aanawi gikendamang jiigi-zaaga’igan
when we know at the edge of the lake

gii-zaagida’aawangweyang ingoding
where ashes were poured

zaagaakominagaanzh zaagaagoneg
the bearberry stands in the snow

zaagidikwanaaging ezhi-nisidotamang
branches reaching and tracing

zaagijiwebinamang gaye ishkonamang
what we have tossed and what we have saved

ezhi-naagadawaabandamang
as we examine

gizaagi’in, gizaagi miidash ozaagi’aan.
love.

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“I wrote this poem after conversations with my daughters, my own true love, and a group of women at Trent University in Ontario who asked Shirley Williams and I how to talk about love between cis-gender, queer, gay, lesbian and trans people. We struggled to give them precise words for those binary concepts and offered instead the concept of ‘zaagi-’ which is a morpheme meaning ‘open’ or ‘outward’ and one of the words used to translate the English word ‘love’ into Ojibwe. My poem is really two poems layered together with the meaning overlapping in a way that is almost the same but never precisely an echo of rhythm and content. In my dreams readers know both Ojibwe and English fluently and delight in the sleight of hand used to be a poet in both languages. For now, until there are more readers of Ojibwe, it is a bridge between worlds, one where love is centered by gender and one where the sighing sound of ‘zaagi’ is an invitation to any Other who accepts it.”
—Margaret Noodin