When you think of your ancestry, how does it make you feel? Do you feel a strong connection to its culture and influences, or does it feel like a fleeting memory?
“I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move” has Louise Erdrich explore her ethnic background as the daughter of a German-American father and half-Ojibwa mother. Her poem features elements of her Native American heritage through imagery and the conceit of the heron and a flood.
For me, I feel a sense of heartbreak in this poem. Due to settlers coming and taking over Native American lands, the people who lived there were forced to find new lands to settle. The poem brings about that despair through its first two stanzas. It talks of a flood that swept through and destroyed the nests of the herons, a direct reference to the conquering of America and its impact on Native American lives. This is further emphasized with strong, forceful language like “Wrestling” (Line 5), “broken” (Line 6), and “dragged” (Line 8). And when the people walk among the branches, the branches whitened under the sun— a cleansing of Native American history.
Yet, the people still remember the herons’ dance above the sky. As the grandfather said: “These are the ghosts of the tree people/moving among us, unable to take their rest.” (Line 22–23) This restlessness of the herons and their ties to the tree people highlights the scarring aftermath of conquering territories and how the people yearn to reclaim their ancestral homes, emphasized in the final stanza as the herons dance around in the sky.
