it’s 2010

i go to the olympic

edition of talking stick festival

in vancouver, i walk

this is how to learn a city

walk from dorothy’s

up on coal harbour

down to cambie

to the roundhouse

to the show

 

i will never be

a headliner

i will never be

on the podium

i am forever

only what i am

a poet.

 

i’m on a panel

with fellow indigenous

artists, talking, taking turns

a former friend, in her turn

points a loaded question

directly at me, what about

authenticity?

 

i wonder when

we became so obsessed

with status, with bloodlines

with resisting life. mistaking

honouring of cultures, living

by the light given, with betrayal

of some thing defined

by someone else? i only answer

i am what i am.

she is not satisfied, but i am

not alive for her

but for my ancestors dreams

and the sake of those to come

and to follow the song

by the light given me.