More than Two Spirits

People hear my name
And suddenly think
They get to have some piece of me.
Whatever the conversation,
It changes to what they can know of me.
Ask why don’t I match their expectations.
How dare I challenge their assumptions
About me.
Is that your real name?
Does it mean something special?
Funny you don’t look it.
I apologize for being pale and colonized,
Assure them that my ancestors still fight
Within me.
I explain I’d have long hair if I could,
As I used to.
That my parents had black hair and dark eyes.
That I am the only family member who is bald.
Rummage for some feathers and bells,
Beat my drum and sing
Explaining visions and rites of passage,
Beliefs that sustained you, and joke about
Government documentation of what is deemed a sovereign nation and therefore legitimate.
(Watch you go to ridiculous lengths to kill off the food source, the language, the family,
Take the land,
Outlaw your religion…then ask you to
Comply. Register. Move. Otherwise you officially don’t exist.)
Explain that each nation makes its own rules, matrilineal and patrilineal clan systems,
And membership is often limited to only one, and how blood quanta strip each successive generation a few more numbers.
How the established policy assures eventual extinction.
Meanwhile blood still pumps its truths,
Recognized, documented, or simply lived.
How many ran and hid? Blended in and lied?
Did what they could to survive,
Choosing to keep children near
Rather than community.
Learning the white subterfuge,
Like wearing an animal hide.
So much simply doesn’t exist if you don’t speak of it.

I called for help and you came.
Told me my story.
A deep tale of walking two worlds at once,
Seeing in the gaps,
Snowflake on your forehead
Marking your vision.
The power of a name unfolding
With time. Relatives concerned you were going to be seen, uncovering
What had been so furiously obscured,
As if generations of poverty
And running hadn’t already
Shown its truth in your failing heart.
Passing in pink for so long, I like to think it was my white ancestors that disowned me twice, and only gave back what I chose to take.

Back at dying, and seeking strength again ,
it might be time to search again.
Wander into the woods
To get lost and find something
To look for one’s meaning.
As if dead owls weren’t portent enough.
Prayer fans held on honor beats,
Then back to hunting, tracking,
searching the horizon.