There’s Something in the Water

Written By: Caela Collins, Digital Storyteller
Photo Credit: The Reverend, Deacon Donald Burr, Christ Church (Stratford)

The blood in your veins, trembles in the presence of water,
Rushing towards an ancient past that passed but refuses to pass away.

Like the buried seeds, whose harvest sits atop varnished wood
During a November altar, reveals the immortality of ancestral traditions
Even as the recipe alters.

It’s the rivers that give you shivers.
The rumbling world below your steps are quaking the earth.

Un-birth your faults when friction builds along the edges of plates,
Piled with potatoes, cranberries, pumpkin, and three sisters.
Miracles live in your lithosphere;
It’s the magnitude of tribes who marched before you
Who are at the epicenter of turning tides,
Causing your spirit to quiver.

Give thanks to our “Long Tidal River,”
A name baptized by ancient elder tongues
Who inherently knew the restorative power and blessing in The Creator’s water
In “Quinnitukqut.”
Now named Connecticut, the bridge that binds historical text and esoteric nature
In a world where Ezekiel 47:9 becomes a synonym for waterbirth.

Deep within the rivers is a knowing, a humbling calling.
Not a place for drinking, but one where knees are falling.

The hunger for a Native past
Is passed around the table of offering,
Anointing the centerpiece of prayer.

There’s something in the water,
You feel it in your bones.
Light a candle of gratitude,
Because the ancestors are here.