Legend of the Girl in Wetsuit

LEGEND OF THE GIRL IN WETSUITDo you want to know the story, the legend of the girl in wetsuitwho turned to stone on Stellar's Rock at the harbourbeside the Great Forest, in the place they called K'emk'emelayThe question was put to me by a Salish womanwhose grandmother tended the fishing weirnear Siwash Rock at the edge of the Salish Seaand who told her the legend when she was a childIs the story true, I asked, or is it just a legendTo both of my questions she answered yesWhy do you want to tell me now, I probedBecause, she said, a hundred years have passedand soon there will be no one left who knowsThe legend contains secret knowledgethat only now the world is ready to hearHeralded but not heeded by your own peopleand reflected in the warning of a warriorin the path of a peacemaker and in the simplicity of a seekerThe legend was encoded in her culturewith words and concepts I could not understandBut her insight took me on an inward journeythrough a passage outside space and timewhere one must learn to see with the heartWhat follows is the Salish woman's recollection of the legendand my translation of her grandmother's taleIt moves from the fishing weir at the edge of the Salish Seainto the Great Forest and the place they called K'emk'emelayacross the Great Land and to Empires beyond the Sea