Moving Blood

Mother’s blood to keep alive

Marched shivering behind caribou

Across a bridge of ice and earth

Long before history knew

Ancient Thule killed and lived

Unmolested along Labrador’s coast

Until black robes appeared

Giving their body to eat as host

Robes returned and ruled

Devouring ancient wisdom and ways

Stoppered her blood in villages

Bound life with clocks and days

Orkney blood came rushing in

Fleeing from Europe’s wars

Inuit maids fled brutal lives

Wed trappers from Europe’s stores

Father’s blood fled Gaul

To live in Fenian territory

Mere centuries ago

Giving name to my family

Starved out by English nobles

Hand stained in bloody crime

Fled again across Atlantic waves

To mix again with Gaulish lifewine

Cruel crucible of Labrador

Fused mother and father’s blood

Love withered and fled

But blood lives on in brood

My blood has taken me

Far from nightless Labrador

Far even from docile Canada

To sunrise on Nihon’s pacific shore

Whether my blood stops here

Or mingles with noble Yamatonochi

Think not that I have moved my blood

But know that it has moved me