Homeland

I longed for a homeland that was not mine

You can’t own what your family doesn’t have, I find

Looking back I wasn’t at all blind

But the world around me molded my mind

Ideologies and theories overflow

So my identity is stifled, it will not grow

From concrete and dust, therefore I’ll go

To the land where milk and honey flow

Where I can truly be me

Living God’s life, a new kind of free

Art and heart, the life-giving tree

The vast sea of opportunity I see

The natives were noble, strong, and proud

Without a sound, their voices were loud

I longed to join their admirable crowd

While judgment of my own skin like a cloud

In my mind, shot down and halted happiness

I wanted to run away and scream, to address

The shame of being White and then to undress

The blindness of elders, but I digress

The stories of the people stirred emotions so deep

Their precious memories I wanted to keep

Their kind dying out as Whiteness did seep

Onto their reservations while the world was asleep

Let me be a new example

The population represented in a sample

That beautiful culture I will not trample

As my burning charity multiplies ample

I can’t be native, but that’s okay

My life is reconciled in the greatest way

I’ll create the culture I admire still today

I’ll be who I’ll be, come what may.