Mountain in the middle of Banff, sheltering
artists: sacred land, guardian of the peaks,
where we ask permission to climb
its flank, work on its back, enter into
its story—one of seizure of native lands,

Stoney Nakoda, Blackfoot, and Tsuut’ina
nations, Treaty 7 territory, claimed now
also by a park, a town, a center for the arts,
coyotes, mule deer, pine martens,
the red squirrels, cougar, elk.

Angela tells me to look up its name—
not Tunnel—there never was, just
a railroader maker’s thought—nor
Sleeping Buffalo, though so it looks,
and lives in everyday talk today,

but Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain
the name requested by the tribes, translation
of its older Stoney Nakoda one
as it stands at the entrance to range
after tilted, rocky range.

And so I give thanks for sleep and wake
and the companionship of ravens
and the mule deer, keeping warm
at mid-day outside my studio,
my ears tuned to chickadee and nuthatch,

the red squirrels chasing each other
by my windows, the chuckle of the Bow
in the valley with its glacial turquoise tint,
the sun crossing the valley. And at night,
all the light in the snow, under Orion climbing.