a runon sentence dedicated to this event and all beings who are here. please note that this comes from just one lenape perspective, i in no way claim to represent anyone but myself.

Content warning: heavy racial subject matter

lenape existence here is fractured
and as they try to frack
in this lenape sipu
this delaware river
they dig their hands into poisoned soil,
attempting to drag out and cut our arteries
they have always used blood
against blood
such violence
is the breath of morning for lenapeyok
we look east
smudging with sweet grass smoke we hope will float all the way back home (it does)
they say we have abandonment issues
from our fathers and our fathers fathers
but what about our separation from our mother
that genderless matriarch who whispers whims
to us in our sleep

the first time i came home
i ran to the ocean
starving to float
be held
by my home
chemicals, waste
let me drown too
because we are of flesh the same
and sometimes
it feels like we’ll be safer
in the next life anyway
but no matter it all
because these men possess no real power
to kill something that cannot die
and one day
if they don’t stop
she will rise up
swallow them whole
i’ll go with the current
in new form
i am not scared of what white people call death
i am only scared of this life

and my mind in layered reality
does not mean i do not hold responsibility
to put out oil fires
and to sing seeds alive
hope for a black and red return
i ask again and again
why did that white foam wash against these shores?

us lenapeyok
the roots who call us home
we deserve a place here
as you plant these seeds
and prepare a gift for those who have given you more than you can imagine
you do the labor of our hands
you shape physically what we do spiritually

our land is waking up
and you are letting them know
that you will learn from the water poured from the sky
you will listen to children
you will collect blessings and share

a surrender
as a guest
humility
only the land can teach

i pray you become land based
i pray you think about this land as much as my bones do
i pray you read about us
i pray you bring my elders home
i pray you take on a responsibility us lenapeyok can only dream of having

this city
built on money and lies
severed heads and slave bones
white death
apocalypse

to stand against this city
sit against this city
sleep against this city
speak against this city
is to birth life
to be earth tree trunk canoe in water
to hold steady in an ocean
that might fight back any day now
to fight
is to surrender to four ways
of earth
of fire
of water
of sky

and so
as you listen to us grandfathers
the old ones who have walked so far away
tears which fall to words
which fall to prayers
which fall to rain
water for
tobacco,
corn,
and daydreams where babies sit in three sisters gardens, teething on squash harvest
and mothers no longer have to search for homes here
clay pressed to cracks to hold all the liquid
tattoos over scars
smell sweetgrass story
which sings us home.