move? : A poem by Amy Lu

A poem by Amy Lu

Graphics by Levi LoCascio-Seward

move, he says

they move because his gun

is unlocked and loaded

move, he says

we’ll be slow and peaceful

move? they ask

move from what, the blockades

created with warm-blooded

bodies and interlinked souls?

move from the grass and trees?

move? they ask

move from the mountains

that sway with the wind

move? when moving only catches

his eyes, greedy and hungry

move your blockades, he says

before we come there

and make you move

make us move? they ask

their feet planted, deep and intrinsic

move your blockades, they say back

the ones that kill our women

and turn our men jaded

the ones that snatch our

children and paint them white

move your blockades, they cry

the ones that leave mothers childless

and children motherless

move your blockades, they ask

before they’re six feet under their own land

move? move from what

move from the traps and promises

not seen through, silent

but not forgotten

move from what?

move, he says

move? they ask

we do move, like the orange sun

through the smoke screen sky

rising each dawn, new again

the blockades stay

and they will stay just

until he moves first

and the people are not

bleeding onto the land anymore

From the Poet:

“My poem is about the pipelines being installed throughout North America on unceded territory of Indigenous people. Whether it is the Dakota Access Pipeline or the Wet'suwet'en resistance to the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia, this issue needs to be discussed. The light the media paints Indigenous peoples in is often racially-profiled, unfair and from a settler-colonialist point of view. I want to help rewrite the narrative with my poem and show the struggles these people are going through to protect their traditional territories.”