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Background
The
Madeline Island Cemetery houses the remains of Ojibwe chiefs and
early residents. The graves are marked with crosses and/or small spirit
houses. The cemetery is located near the Madeline Island Yacht
Club. We have enjoyed walking through the cemetery and reading the
names and dates of those buried here. People who visit the graves
leave small gifts of coins and tobacco on the graves and spirit
houses. 
This
poem was written by Kelsey for a school assignment.
Equaysayway
is the Oijbwe name for Madeline who was the daughter of Chief White
Crane.
La
Pointe Indian Cemetery
By
Kelsey Larson
There’s
water on three sides. The Trader’s docked
on one, Cat Island bound at morning’s light.
The storm is gone, tornados in the north,
and August drizzle ushers in the night.
It’s humid twilight air that molders bones
and crumbles stone. Heat hangs after the squall.
Far fewer stones than skulls, the ground has said:
but then, Ojibway dead were birds, were small.
An aristocracy sleeps underground,
the one I call The Princess in my head.
Of fragrant pines and icy water born,
‘neath spears of grass and rusted pennies, dead.
The water, still and black, the
Trader’s shine
reflects. There’s water on three sides of bones.
Cat Island in the morning, sun-on-pine,
while Madeline is pine and graves and stones.
A crane of white, a daughter with a name
like sand between the teeth. The deepest blue.
A Trader scrapes his hull against the stones:
“There’s
water on all sides, and all for you.”
The Island, in the dark, all anchor-lights
are lit. The Princess, dead, and tucked away.
And now she has an Island in her name
though waves and wind still say Equaysayway.
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s/v Nordic Song