Goose Tongue
I kneel on wet sand. The morning tide has swept over this intertidal zone, leaving salty plants dotting the shore. My fingers pinch the base of long, tongue-shaped leaves. Beside me, blades of wide grass dampen the bottom of my cedar bark basket. Gunalchéesh, suktéitl’. Gunalchéesh, suktéitl’. I pick a few more leaves from the goose tongue plant and then crawl on my hands and knees to reach for another nearby cluster. Overhead, a gradient of darker clouds sprinkles a gray palette sky with looming summer rain. I walk the beach from plant to plant like a grazing deer, sometimes bending, sometimes kneeling, and occasionally nibbling leaves. With a full basket, I sit on a log at the wrackline, raincoat sheening with light drizzle, brush a sandflea off my sleeve and chew a blade of tart goose tongue. Time drifts like surf scoters on waves until I sense the blanket of sea raising her head from the pillow of slack tide, then turn, flowing back to awash her wild garden with ancient brine.
*Suktéitl' (Lingít name) for Goose Tongue, colloquial name of Plantago maritima: Phylum: Magnoliophyta; Class: Magnoliopsida; Order: Plantaginales; Family: Plantaginacea.
*Gunalchéesh, suktéitl’: Thank you, goose tongue. Elders taught my family to thank plants before and during harvesting.
VIVIAN FAITH PRESCOTT was born and raised on the small island of Wrangell, Alaska, Kaachxana.áak’w, in Southeast Alaska on the land of the Shtax’heen Kwáan. Read more.