It Is My Song

It is my song
My voice is my power
it is my song
that voice it bubbles up unapologetic underground
gurgles rushes blushes burbles over boundaries and into rivers
sings purple blue midnight that cannot be contained by banks
it is honour
stepping up stepping out from sisters mothers grandmothers
the strength of women gone before they could tell
the stories that are
gift and calling
blight and resistance
grieving and joy
stories of stolen names and babies thrown over fences in the dark warm night
fragrant cereus and
circle of hibiscus i step into surround me
this is who i am this is home this is tobacco box of cedar sweetgrass wood feathers
that may have
been mangrove mango palm frond if not for those damned stories
stories that contained us and pushed us out at the same time silenced and faded the
colours of
ocean and cinder block bush and sky
where are you, mothers, now that i am home?
that voice it gurgles rushes blushes burbles over boundaries and into rivers sings
purple blue
midnight that cannot be contained by banks

Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society
Vol. 2, No. 1, 2013, pp. 133 ©2013 C. Henay This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution. Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.