Poet of Susquehanna

Will you sell my bones for broken arrows
And break twigs and snapping turtles in your hands
I’m an Iroquois poet hanging a feather from my ear
I’ve chased the jutted shores of Susquehanna
from length to length
But I’ve never lost momentum in the wandering tide
The Three Sisters spurned my tribe with a tongue of drought
And our sachem drowned his lungs in the jutted embankments
of the running Susquehanna
The wild Susquehanna, with lily petals tossing
In the harmful wind of the mighty Orenda
My daughter’s passed and my Amitola lost her raven locks
for the quelling of her thirst
The trees that stand as I pass their tired skeletons
Hold their arms high to hide their shifty eyes
They wave their leaflets and nest the ravens
in their shriveled bosoming breasts
And I leave in exile on the black soil shores of the Susquehanna
As the faces of the slender masks of the spirits
Smite me with hollow irises