Part One
Xwewamënk
Hushed the streams, and quiet
the rocks beside the streams.
The Lenape, like all of them, unspeaking.
The Spirit guardians whose masks hang on the posts, silent,
The four walls, hushed,
Silent the far quarters of the world.
~Daniel Hoffman, from Brotherly Love
“at the big river flat”
Along the North Branch of the Susquehanna
within the folded Appalachian Mountains
lies a geological depression—
canoe-shaped Ridge and Valley Province.
Before it had a name, when blue-veined ice
receded some twelve thousand years ago,
nomadic hunter-gatherers arrived.
Yet all that one can ever know of them
is what can be divined from potsherds, bones,
tools and weapons carved from stone and wood.
In time, through woodlands dense with oak and birch,
hemlock, hawthorn, hickory, pine, and beech,
new men pursued the white-tailed deer and elk.
In spring, with cradleboards upon their backs,
their women broke the soil with deer-bone hoes,
planting seeds of maize and squash and beans.
The Lenape had described this blessed land—
dreamt up by Kishelamakank, and formed
by spirits, where a shad-filled river flowed
and waterfowl were plentiful— Xwewamënk.
Wyoming to the settlers from the east,
who claimed the Endless Mountains and the fields,
the forests and the sacred hunting grounds,
attempting to possess what can’t be owned,
waging war with brothers over deeds
and documents, until a greater cause
united them in an uneasy peace;
while farther north, Haudenosaunee chiefs
no longer of one mind, would one day mourn
their forfeiture of solidarity
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