anne • sikking

I write.

My first published poem appeared in 1972 in Messenger of Love, edited by Jamaican thinker Wildorf E Goodison-Orr.

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I cook.

I longed for spatulas and pans even before I could lift them. Shared food balances writing.

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I quilt.

Making a whole out of fragments satisfies.

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I parent.

Raising children, not all of my own making, has been an education.

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My life has been charmed and blessed. I am fortunate to be here, to have lived well, met many people, and been to many places. 

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My beginnings were not so happy. I was an abandoned child of mixed heritage. In 2012, although parents, country, and culture were lost to me, I was able to recover my name. With one grandparent born on the rez, another a descendant of the Trail of Tears, what marked them also marked those of us who followed. 

 

Yet I was gathered up by some extraordinary people, to whom I owe the stable platform upon which all else has been built.

 

Sometimes blood has nothing to do with love at all.