They were lost for a long time
because the invader
had taken away the name of their land,
the name that had placed them,
right as moss,
in the order of everything

It had taken away their rivers,
straightened them, dredged them, drained them
to make way for logs and motors,
so they couldn’t look at them
and know their way home

Years passed. Cities rose, and generations
followed, one after another,
none of them knowing
how they were led by the neck,
how little what was offered
could touch the hidden caverns
of their need, of their potential

It was a revelation how a whisper
could resonate so loudly, could crash
so many stories, unearth so many
roots and bones and memories.
Something secret in plain sight, a code
of DNA, which all those layers of tales
couldn’t bury

It was the power for a revolution
how it spread from soul to soul
until the truth of it
rose like the dawn:
This is our name, our name
and the name of our land.
It can’t be taken from us now
for we are one
and we are whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 15, 2016