Tainted Waters

These are not my waters

Crimson of red

Like the war paint I once dread

Rebecca,

I’m told is who I am

Stripped of my native soul

My tongue I don’t know

Who am I?

The part of me

My mother birth

Has died

I’ve tried

To hold on

Who am I?

Pocahontas

Who is she?

Was she?

Ever

No

I’m Rebecca

Like any other name

That’s what I answer to

Powhatan

Wahunsenaca

Father

All mean the same thing

Amonute,

Matoaka,

Pocahontas

No, I mean Rebecca

Is just another name

Like “playful one”

But it is

Rebecca

I repeat in my head.

Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca

But it is not in my heart.

Was I Rebecca the day I fell in

Between the man named Smith

to sever the sentence of his utter destruction

To stop my fathers deadly blows?

Was Rebecca like a new shiny rifle

To stay in place for my ascending post and power?

Was Rebecca

Always who I was meant to meet

In my heart, mind and

Reflection?

I see the muddy waters of the English.

These are not my waters.

If Rebecca is just another name,

Then why does it hurt on my tongue to

Speak each syllable and make out the sounds of strangers

Who seek to destroy my native roots?

I do not step into these new roots; they won’t take hold

My body rejects it, my throat burns

From this fire water.

They don’t want to destroy my roots,

They want to make me feel like they never existed.

My heart song is louder

I am not their Christian trophy

In war drums I am louder

I am strung together in tightly wounded pieces like my people’s culture

Where is my voice?

Under the English suture and sword

We fight to keep our own voice.

These are not my waters,

But I will claim them

In my own rites

A rebirth in spirit

As my father had chided me as a child for being too rambunctious,

He calls me by any other name,

And yes, it all sounds the same

But I’ll repeat it, and own it

To recapture my home.

****

A poem collaboration with the lovely writer and my friend Quinn Patrick

We decided to write about the historically significant and beautiful Pocahontas.

Please check out her work today, she has a brilliant and emotionally intense style that is very refreshing.