Category: First Nations
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On “The Shapes of Native Nonfiction”

A bright, seasonably cool day. The stiff breezes of the past few days have finally subsided somewhat. Wait! As soon as I wrote this the wind picked up and is moving the mostly bare tree branches vigorously. I’ve been reading experimental essays by a host of Native American writers in Shapes of Native Nonfiction, edited…
Michael Watson PhD
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Deer In the Field

A seasonably warm day, pleasant enough that Nori spent twenty minutes on the porch. Here and there a few leaves cling to trees. From my window I can see determined reds among the scant dangling browns and tans. There are fewer berries on what’s left of the Poke Berry, just enough to entice the birds…
Michael Watson PhD
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Veterans’ Day Eve

A wet, calm, densely foggy day, leaves floating ever so slowly down in drifts of colour. Last night we had an intense thunderstorm, lightening rippling across the sky in all directions. The heavy rain stripped most of the leaves from our trees, although a few maples are insistently holding on to colour. I have not…
Michael Watson PhD
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Imagining Rosh Hashanah

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” -widely attributed to Rabbi Tarfon who lived in the generation following the destruction of the second temple. I am…
Michael Watson PhD