On Not Being an Inuit Print

 

I am not an enchanted owl,

but I want to be. I want to, like you 

might want strong meat to chew on, 

or else at the opposite extreme 

rich thick creamy chocolate cake

that you might want or I …

but anyway, what I don’t want 

is to be a piece of canvas, or paper

or board, or anything flat, two-

dimensional as a blade of grass.

It’s not that I object to being

Inuit (an Inuit anything) 

because that would make me

racist, wouldn’t it? (Although I 

don’t live in Canada or Alaska

so would it even count?) It’s the 

print bit I don’t like to entertain, 

not when pertaining to me, in my 

good round flesh. But there’s this 

one print I saw just now, when taking

a virtual stroll through a part of 

the Canadian Museum of History.

The Enchanted Owl arrested me, with 

its unblinking gaze, its half-curved

claws caught mid-retraction, and

its wild, expansive, stripes of feathers –

its confronting feathers – paused

for take-off, while this creature (me)

is briefly examined. I want to be the real

alive owl. I want to expand my wings,

cry out in a voice that I – who didn’t paint 

this, or live  there – don’t know, and will 

never. I want to fill out that compact body 

with food and breath, rise up to brush the air 

with sweeps of those enchanting feathers.

NaPoWriMo Day Seven

Print by Kenojuak Ashevik (image)

(Fell madly in love with this image, then learned it's actually a famous 'Canadian icon'.)