"Soul Ascending" by Josh Hutchinson.
© Please do not reproduce without artist's permission.
LOST TRIBESMEN
by Grimace
Who's going to be the rosetta guardian
When we need more protection
To utilize our core defenses
Because the suicides, the booze and crime
Are just poor reflections
Unless you're born against them
Take a vision quest, we listen less
Mapquesting the four directions
War prevention is what the denizen feels
The laughing and lessons will heal
Exempt what the psychos do, so cycle through
Adapt the urban, re-inventing the medicine wheel
Rejecting the deals of land claims
Fixing our wounds with bandaids
With these simpleton apologies of past wrongs we can't change
Tobacco is not sacred in an ashtray
And we're closing off the last days of our past ways
Cats replacing smudging with sweetgrass
With blunts and a weed sack
Don't feel foolish if you wanna grow your hair longer
It isn't stupid to believe in windigo, shape shifters and bear walkers
Or the benevolent elements 'cause our medicine men would scare doctors
But we can get back to that, just got to find where our fire went
'Cause we're the left over products of our environment
But hey, call me red cloud look up the sun's bleeding
Spit it out you don't need rum for a fun evening
Open your eyes
The spirits
Broke in your minds
For a drum teaching
But nowadays if you don't listen,
I think they're done speaking
Grimace (Caleb Trudeau) is a hip hop artist and painter from the Wikwemikong First Nation, who's now living in Toronto. He is a former facilitator of the Sound Poets' Circle at the Acadmey of the Impossible. "Lost Tribesmen" was originally published in the Toronto Street Writers anthology West of What We Know.
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