We were Wendat
at first contact
and before we knew it
we were sleeping on ground zero.
There’s a foreign faith in machinery
that overlooks the scenery
and strikes instead where it lands
at the deepest vulnerability.
The white-skinned moon on earth
grows tall in the ghostly birch
and offers gently what we need.
All new pallors should so proceed.
We’ve paid in generations
for the Love of God
and Truth and Reconciliation.
If it’s Love you import,
we accept come what may—even history.
We’ve seen enough of Spirit
to know the strength of ambiguity.
Martyrs, if you’ve come to die,
go back. Ours is the land of living.
To dwell here with your Christ
you must learn also our way of giving.
All this we must,
like trees in autumn, trust
in bigger time is good.