YOU REALLY SHOULD HAVE READ THE FINE PRINT

by Celeste DeSario

Dedicated to Chief Harry Wallace of the Unkechaug Nation and to all Sovereign Indigenous Nations working to reclaim sacred lands and to revive stolen languages that speak the truth to history.

Thank you for welcoming us to your lands,
And for teaching us to plant crops that actually grow.
The corn, squash, beans 
Helped us survive when the seeds we brought from overseas failed.
Thank you for teaching us to use fish to fertilize soil too poor to grow crops.
We got rich shipping your deer hides and beaver pelts back to the motherland,
while you helped us build birchbark canoes and guided us along ancient trails.
Thank you for showing us how to identify wild blueberries 
And harvest cranberries hidden in bogs.
And sharing with us how to use Sumac to ward off fevers and colds.

And thank you for introducing us to Pokeweed
So, we could use its ink to sign treaties
We had no intention of keeping.

So many promises…
We will protect your homelands,
(we are not calling them reservations…yet)
Your right to hunt, fish, gather on land we stole from you.

Don’t worry.
We’ve got it from here.

Celeste DeSario writes poetry to process and make sense of life’s events. Her work is featured in The New Verse News, The SportsScribe, The Changing Times, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dissident Voice, and Three-Line Poetry. She will not be celebrating Columbus Day.

NATIONS REBORN ON THE SALISH SEA

by Alfredo Quarto

                   

My sleep awoke in me last night a vision

that warrior clans returned to Puget Sound.

I dreamt that cedar canoes once more

plied upon steel waters

wooden vessels hewn by hand…

the head of deer carved upon each bow

bounding through the waves

propelled by the flat ends of many legged oars

ruminant hooves slapping against

            the wizened face of sea.

 

Something was reborn when the paddlers pulled again

their oars like tense wings fashioned

from the inner strength of the yew tree…

revival was at hand as a coastal people

once more walked upon the waters

each pull of oar one step in two directions

linking the severed past with future.

 

Deep within the red earth

remnant roots are recalled

as an old people revive

feel their pliant pulse range once more

along the arterials from the breasts of mountains

to the beat of the heart of the sea…

new life may grow from the same soil

            that buries us after all.

 

From the arching stern the captain

steers with eyes fixed towards home

his rhythmic song in the ancient tongue

sets our pace as old wisdom is rediscovered.

Near the shore a lone deer swims

holds its antlered mantle above cold water

behind him, steepled conifers climb green hills

rise to where sea gulls glide and scream

in great excitement, as if proclaiming

            the People have returned.

Alfredo Quarto is an environmental activist and poet living on an organic farm in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains in Washington.  He’s been published in numerous poetry publications including Poetry Seattle, Catalyst, Raindance Journal, Piedmont Review, Haiku Zashi Zo,  Paperbag Poems, Seattle Arts, Spindrift, Arts Focus, Arnazella, Dan River Anthology, Amelia, Americas Review, Vox, Middle House Review, The Closed Eye Open, Elevation Review, Montana Mouthful, Tidepools, and Wild Roof.