The Learned Pig

Art – Thinking – Nature – Writing

How to Make a Map for Ethnic Cleansing

 

. . . . . . . . . .an elegy

 

Demark colored lines fluid as the Red sea

and place names for distance.. . . . . . . . . .Cherokee––

We are a region

where herds wait, swallowing grass like fire. . . . . . . . . .Seminole––

and drink the stream till sandy loam cracks

and a Burren juts out like a dying stomach.. . . . . . . . . .Chickasaw––

Patches of daisies in crevices of erosion,

a smooth blue hue to calm desolation.. . . . . . . . . .Crow––

No food, no safety, no, nothing, let the mouth circle o

and we marched west when pushed.. . . . . . . . . .Muscogee––

Skin’s lines as air since birth, then we became

something else, named waves against the shore.. . . . . . . . . .Choctaw––

Divisions strict as rocks building fences, building Babel,

and a Burren juts out as a dying stomach. . . . . . . . . .Blackfoot––

that rumbles for what was, the moon-root

sucking in air and sporadic rain,. . . . . . . . . .Ojibwa––

a constant hunger. Our tears become the sea

and we are thought to be obsolete,. . . . . . . . . .we will not be barren land.

 
 

Part of The Learned Pig’s Wolf Crossing editorial season, spring/summer 2017.

Image credit: Squid Ink, via Flickr

 

The Learned Pig