naiya ellis-woodward
salmon nurseries
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In Alevis, a womyne cawed Jane (or another Jane)
Planted a rock een Todd Holes,
And the Salmon set down their cots and
Pebbular mobiles, eggs settling
Into silt, milk and salty lipids,
Roe runs into Redd Smolts.
Planted a rock een Todd Holes,
And the Salmon set down their cots and
Pebbular mobiles, eggs settling
Into silt, milk and salty lipids,
Roe runs into Redd Smolts.
Slippery Alevins scramble like strawberry jam,
They brenge into adolescents,
Ettling bairns’ bellies rubbing against the nursery floor,
Freshwater cairns tossed like furniture
Flying through Abhainn in search
Of the whitened mother,
Red flesh rotted
In migratory salts and milted yolks –
They brenge into adolescents,
Ettling bairns’ bellies rubbing against the nursery floor,
Freshwater cairns tossed like furniture
Flying through Abhainn in search
Of the whitened mother,
Red flesh rotted
In migratory salts and milted yolks –
And Jane Mamies their return,
Carried by McLir
To The Sea
Carried by McLir
To The Sea
An ongoing response to an inherited rock from a salmon nursery in Glen Clova, Scotland. I work to map found film and new footage to an imagined matriarchal salmon nursery cared for by generations of Janes, building folkloric narratives into the ruins of my ancestral site.