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Nkata Lënapeowsi
“I am [an] Indian and in this town I will never be a saint.”
- Joy Harjo “Santa Fe”
Here the waters and the people
move shielding themselves from
the gentle folding of land, trees,
and water. Here we came to rest.
And the trees and the land and
the waters have been folded beneath,
resting as unkempt streets, odor
heavy Bradford pears sterilize it all.
Rest, the end of our ongoing exile,
unreached as we dissolve like ink
blotches into settler denuded land.
Relentless need to move along through
lands we recognize as fractured, sense
they were once familiar. Linger over
bone fragments of extinct pigeons,
burrowed roots of deceased chestnuts.
Our days dogged by historians,
lawyers, petty poets, who circle praise
of their murderous kin. Each word,
each fiction, flash-bangs to chase out
their guilt, us. Sainthood over reparations,
over simple healing. Nkata. Perhaps for
the flash-bangs to stop. To hear spoken
the truth of our relationship. Nkata.
Lënapeowsi, our way has been flight,
shaking the bones of our ancestors
in ceremonies held on the run. Upon
these stolen Three-Fires lands, I rest
beneath a flag post built to intimidate
relations across the river. In absence
grandfather oaks, lost inland streams,
even the winds push us from the west.
Our movement is a symptom. Feverish
some of us hold still. And watch over
of the walls we built, noting climate
pushes palsëwakàn higher, like oceans.
- Daniel Lockhart
D.A. Lockhart is the author of multiple collections of poetry and short fiction. His work has been a finalist for the Trillium Book Award, the Raymond Souster Award, Indiana Author’s Awards, First Nations Communities READ Award, and the ReLit Award. His work has appeared widely throughout Turtle Island including, The Malahat Review, Grain, CV2, TriQuarterly, The Fiddlehead, ARC Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, Best New Poetry from the Midwest, and Belt. Along the way, his work has garnered numerous nominations for the Pushcart Prize, the National Magazine Award, and Best of the Net. He is a graduate of the Indiana University – Bloomington MFA in Creative Writing program where he held a Neal-Marshall Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing. He is pùkuwànkoamimëns of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation. Lockhart currently resides at Waawiiyaatanong and Pelee Island.