If it were as simple skin
it would be tidy
but those ancestors knocking from
hidden graves
tell other stories
one left behind the old ways in Prussia
for the “new world”
walked his pretty young femme
to the enemy church but never entered
when asked to convert said,
“oh my deathbed”
and did
they called the priest to sprinkle the water
he did it for his wife
what language did he use to address her?
(his rolling r’s trickling into their kisses)
And that old French/Indian woman
Acadian, uh?
what does she say
behind her high stitch needlework collar?
(the Mona-like smile still alive on my paper copy of a sepia photo)
That we are more–or less–them?
those who called the land a new name
(Unamak’i) land in fog
(Acadie) le nouveau monde
(Cape Breton) name in smoke
Are all my languages lost?
Spoken in whispers?
Ni’n na Mi’gmewa’j aq teluisi Moqwa’ wen
Ah, but they loved those French men
they loved those smooth ochre girls
whose skin blazed bright
mirroring the sun’s luster
he found the cautious porcupine
of her skin
her fine quill work on the dress
he lifted above her hips
to make more of him and less of her
now the lesser of her makes more of me
my papoose a yellow knitted bunting bag
stretched across four steel needles
no sacred stitch work in
booties
doillies
toilet roll covers
just forgotten fibres
artificial yarns
secreted stories
Gone is the
Birch Bark
Deer Skin
Loon Call
Swan Song
Are all my languages lost? Spoken in whispers?
Moi shu Acadienne Je m’apelle Personne
My tongue speaks a jibberish of
absent Algonquian
vanquished Spanish
gutted German
sings in animal stories of
injured Irish Gaelic
Floats on hard consonants of
cracked Chiac
Are all my languages lost? Spoken in whispers?
is Ereannach me ainm mo Nior
I learned the language of the conquerors
Here my tongue speaks nothing at all
© 2004 J. Noade
