Truth & Reconciliation

If you had asked me
I would have shared with you
My land my ways even my heart
But you wanted it all
You took my home from me
Carrying me far from the hills
Where I gathered young greens
With my mother and sisters
You took my tongue from me
That I could not speak with my schoolmates
Beside me on your hard benches
In the words we learned from our fathers
You took my soul from me
That I would look at your sorrow-faced man
Suspended from two crossed sticks
And imagine he could save me
From this life every Sunday
You wanted it all and we were small
We could not fight
We could only wait
And we watched you make mistakes
You should have carpet-burned our land
When we could not hold up our arms to stop you
You should have starved every one of us
When life was even cheaper than it is today
You should have gouged my eyes from my face
When even my body was barely my own
For I saw the warm sun turn the snowy hare brown
The trees squat silent through the winter
And stand to sing out green songs again each spring
You should have stripped the memories from my mind
That I would forget the voices of my mother and father
As they rang out across the frozen bay

In the days before you came
To empty the gold from our valleys
I will be ever grateful to the spirits
Who have guided me and my people
To this place from the edge of Time
You did not plunge your hands
So deeply into my heart
That I cannot use mine
To carve wood and stones
In the shape of all the ancient stories
That tell the world who we are
And ever shall be