Darkest Shadow

Approach me with an open hand 

We have much in common

We welcome you as a brother 

Our ways will be strange to your visitor 

A new world approaches our shore

We live in the now we see the future you bring

Your arrival is your victory 

We are conquered before the war

Fear and regret out of sight 

Our clothes are so different, stand in front of me without fear

Our color may not be the same but from inside we all bleed

We move across the land as hunters we chase the breeze

Our hearts beat with the changing seasons 

We gather to grow and cultivate and never exceed our needs

Plant two trees for everyone you take

The land we protect heals us we learn by what the earth provides

To breathe in harmony is to look past our conflict

This honor allows us to live for our brothers

The world that surrounds us speaks to us through example

We see the signs

Don't fight the wind embrace its power

The natural world provides all patience becomes our prayer

We are of few words actions speak loud

The past never dies our ceremonies in the dance

Remind us of our elders moved on 

Our culture by fire by forest by rivers and lake

To live here in harmony means 

We know how mother earth breathes

This land has always been our home 

We are granted survival as guardians or her gifts

Our open hand is your guide to the land's bounty

Listen to the voice of the wind it teaches

The fire is where we gather each night 

Offer our thoughts to the flames

Tales rise to the sky to our ancestors

We remain connected

They answer us in the rains and prosperity

Our culture in harmony 

Our legends define us not stories painted spirits on our walls to surround us

Tributes in the trees totems praise the truth

Animals spirits we honor these

They have been passed through time and remain unchanged

Truth is truth

We listen to our shadows

They are our protectors our history our wisdom

There is nothing the eyes of the spirits don't see

Our ways look primitive but are timeless, not foolish or savage

Look beyond your greed 

Our legends stand firm and are from experience past 

Not just a story told when the lessons won't last

The wind told our elders as waves visitors would return

Some will touch the shore and trade goods nothing more 

Some will crash and change the land 

Carry our wisdom across the water to your home

Your great ships brought boats to reach us 

Your will is strong and you force to teach us

A land with so much to give becomes a port of trade

Your gains at our expense place our future at your mercy

Commerce and values to what was free to all of us

Greed becomes an objective you kill for

Where you found us

There is a place where three rivers meet  

Our home the great river you know it 

They make their way and become one

Freshwater is plentiful and provides us many things

It flows to where the big water is and this is where the secret begins

The tides brought you to us from the water beyond

Big water flows towards our home the saltwater rise and retreat 

Freshwater that was three meets with salt from the see

The tides of one body of water ripple 

The rivers mix the fresh and the salt 

We are taught

All waters mix we know this we are all water 

All water will not finish from where it began

Mix together under the surface not so different are we

You changed the name of our land and our river too

Canada, the Saint Lawrence take from it what you will

This is where you found us and your future

Our struggle 

 Look past my hands, humble yet strong

You see our blood as weakness 

Our ways are too strange and forced into hiding

Every scar is a lesson taught by our beliefs 

Earned from the commitment, not resentment

They are the strength they are the price for our ways

We have earned the marks our survival leaves on us

Your words turn to weapons then thrown 

A brotherhood destroyed as we are driven from our home   

Is it our differences that drive your choices

Our value was what we had to be taken

Find a reason to compete with me, make a friend your foe

I am who I am, we are who we have always been

Is that a threat to you 

Exiled from the once welcoming shore we shared

Is it your fear that gives you that right

Are the gains to be taken at our sacrifice enough 

Huddled in a mass of hysterical disbelief

Confined to the spaces your fear provides us

What justifies these choices 

We look to our elder's wisdom for answers the dark emerges 

You took what was not ours to give 

You need to be superior is what fuels your compulsion to fight

Equality took away by what there was to gain

You fight for greed we defend to survive

Look to your legends what do they tell you about humanity

Who guides your forgiveness and administers justice

We now see you as you really are 

The religions you create cause you to separate

Faith is hope not hate

Cut our flesh and equally, we bleed look beyond the surface of what you fear we believe

You promote the need for brotherhood with an agenda of supremacy

Move me from the light of day and hope to make the darkness grey

Our numbers once-proud a way of life disallowed

No way to exist in the world you offer

Keep us alive to live beyond our demise as we are destroyed from within 

Suicide to survive our ways is a memory that is so quick to fade

Living in our outdated ways in the civilization you made

Beaten forgotten made to serve as a living exhibit 

Placed on parade for ceremonial effect 

The political machine puts us back on the reservations 

And soon forgets

Our women and children go missing the world turns away

Left to police our land in isolation without hope we will soon be gone 

Politicians apologize while the cameras are on and fade to black when the spotlight is gone

Force us to see life beyond our ability to pay for it anymore 

We have nothing left to give

Life is a gift if you are free to embrace the way you live

With nothing to exploit we hold no worth 

At the hands of your decision, we are sentenced to extinction

You are not who we pray to or seek permission 

Our pride is left as the source of comedy

Lesser to you by far-left to destroy our past without a future to hope 

We have been forced from our shores placed in hiding like a disgrace

Killed raped and used for cheap labor stand on our shoulders

We build your future like ours is erased

We still earn our scars but they are placed there by you will not ours 

Your gifts of trade

We now know that the blankets you gave 

Were infected by the disease and came from the grave

We die as well as we served as your assassins 

Against your rivals are bows traded for your guns

Our bows are never drawn again to cast out our arrows

Clear the land of the source of our survival

Your guns take away so much

We no longer speak to the fire

The trees still talk but the new generation can’t hear them

They see a world that should never be left behind for a memory to be

One that enslaves and segregates and ignores the needs

Cut the hand and watch it bleed the cure is here but not what we need

Pave over our graves build upon our past

The voice of the trees will echo for no one to hear 

We were all once children happy to play 

Our lands were once the same 

Advancement was your sacrifice 

While we were happy to remain unchanged 

We lived in harmony with a way to understand

You sought a future that is a victim of your command

We accepted you as a brother and shared all our worth

Until you fought back and attacked the earth.