Lexicon

It’s said the Inuit people know 50 names for snow. Living half the year in long darkness, half in forever midsummer sun, the names came from patient study and deliberation, conferring with elders and ancestors, and finally from standing alone on the frozen tundra to shout a name to the wind to learn which snow must answer.

Not Siletz or Siuslaw, neither Coos nor Kalapuya, I was merely born on the delta between two wild sisters, two swift rivers in the time of mighty Chinook running, born here where rain falls a lullaby on the eaves, listening to cloud, lashing the cedars. Perhaps, the wind says, it is time. Are we the last great rain shadow remaining?  It is daunting. I am unqualified. Nevertheless now, as a grown woman with time running short, I begin the work of setting down this imperfect translation.

The scholar will note that this lexicon is forever inaccurate and incomplete, as most linguistic equivalences between poetry and mathematics are impossible. However, I present this imperfect compilation as a primer, a basic catalog, meant merely as an outline of myriad nuance. For just as snow evolves to find novel forms, rain invents itself anew each generation; each manifestation awaits a hearing, an integration, awaits its true name spoken to the wind.

The Names of Rain, in Mostly Alphabetic Order

Ashrel – dervish rain lifts fishes from the ocean

Bentah – walks on mountain sleeping late

Cihtel – brings Camas to bloom and softens earth to dig roots

Drem – tamps cooking smoke from leaving lodge

Enili – paints rainbows

Fege – sends geese to ground to wait for sky

Gryth – cools the face at corn time

Haili – dogs hide under the bed and howl

Inii – mixes with tears of mourning

Joos – plays pipes across the long pond

Klakatesh – washes the berries before picking time

Laqu’me – children run and laugh gathering firewood

Muus – mothers nurse newborns in the doorway

Nehali – toppling ancestor tree from root

O’roko – Chinook climb currents home to spawn

Papuq – lovers watch the moon

Quzshet – rides with thunder

Rokama – pisses on the slippers left outside

Snalak – wakes the crows to fend off the hawk

Tek – trout rising for mayfly

Umoq – making peace and taking pride at potlatch

Vru’ku – sleeping with spirits

Wewemi – closes the dance beside the fire

Xalj – after the fever breaks

Yopuna – grandmothers crack acorns and talk story

Za’aln – hearing the heartbeat of the land and weeping

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Please note this is a work of imagination and the lexicon is a figment of my own mythology~