This place was called Giizhigamide, Gzigmezé.

Some heard it as Kikanamaso. Kikalamezo. Giikanaamozoog.

Languages lost, rewritten, stolen, like the cherry tree Titus

Bronson took from his neighbor, after giving the village his name.

He left town when they reclaimed it Kalamazoo –

 

That was 20 years before George Taylor brought wild celery

seeds from Scotland to this same soil, never imagining

that 40 years later, over 1000 acres of lean green stalks

would earn the nickname Celery City. Still known

for more than 100 years, long after farming shifted to industry:

printing paper song sheets and manufacturing medical beds.

Before the U.S. Army and Uncle Sam made green enlist in the military,

fly pilotless planes into plastic monsters with fly-away fists.

 

Green, the color of conifers and deciduous leaves in Spring,

shamrocks, Anahata chakra and the Emerald City.

Color of harmony peace and stability. Steady optimism

of 150 year-old rocking chair – paint-chipped, still green

as Summer grass – and the persistent, rust-rubbed undercarriage

of a celery-tying machine, looping Kalamazoo’s history

like a long lost lyric, sung and re-sung, or forsaken song of her name

fluttering away like fallen leaves in Autumn.

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