...

https://youtu.be/qnGnj_e6gBw

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What have I learned about my country?

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About its mythos?

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Its ethic?

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Its history?

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I've learned that my country is a jacket 

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That carries many pockets. And that 

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In these pockets there are people, 

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Buffalo skulls stacked into towers,

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Qimmiq, sled dogs, 

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Shot, and built into pyres.

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I've learned that they made people walk,

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Miles, klik after klik, 

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To arrive nowhere - a walk from Ennadai Lake, from Padlei

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Or a cross-country migration, Cherokee trail.

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I've learned that the early Know Nothings

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Of Virginia, and the Great American East,

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Called themselves natives - all the while

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Laying hot knives into tent encampments,

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Felling families

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In the same fashion that we, now, fell our trees.

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I've learned that we buried the bodies deep

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But not yet deep enough 

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So that the skeletons wouldn't appear 

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Upon rummaging through old closets

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With sonograms, and critical eyes.

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I've learned that I was told - truly 

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Told, as a child, in moments where one is

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The most impressionable -

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Many, many lies.

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And I've learned that those that told me them,

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Are more inclined now to hide, than they ever are 

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To apologize. 

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Author's Note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH7STFIzj5E&ab_channel=TanyaTagaq

(4-6-4-6-5-4-3)

Qimmiq pronounced in Ahiarmiut dialect: (K'ai't'meh'q)