Plight of Pocahontas

Father’s hands are cracked and worn,

gnarled knuckles lined deep with

ancient earth and old blood.

We are long grasses in the low fields

swaying this way and that like minnows

pulled by the current of something

greater.

Pulling, pulling,

pulling the heads of corn from an aching ground

we are careful to leave the roots:

a barren mother gives no milk.

Our skin is strong and brimming with sun.

There is life in our veins.

Perhaps these men with sea-colored eyes

are dead inside. They spill onto our shores,

stumbling out from the belly of a wooden whale.

We do not speak their tongue,

all hard stops and sharp breath.

They are of another world, maybe one with

straight lines, new colors, man-made thunder. Somewhere

far from here. Father’s hands are cracked as ever.

But now, his palms are stained with

black soot and new blood.