I am nowhere indigenous. Born in the midwestern United States, I have moved through many other regions. My genetics are blended and confused, my blood relations scattered. Even within the city I have called home for 45 years I belong to no single neighborhood. No land or culture claims me as their own.
accumulating
roots of tangled earth and air
unfixed, wandering—
I occupy each season
refilled, resampled, revived
For Frank’s haibun prompt at dVerse, considering our relationship to the word indigenous, as we celebrate both Columbus Day and the native peoples who inhabited this land long before Columbus discovered it.
K. 
an evocative response, K.! Bravo!
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Thanks Frank.
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We have moved so often as well that I don’t feel indigenous anywhere either. Even the people I run into are all recent residents of the area.
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We are all strangers now, in a way.
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That seemed sad to me at first. Until the tanka. To occupy the seasons and be refilled and revived there isn’t so bad. Nicely done.
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I don’t know why people cling to their genetic identities, as if they and their cultures were some pure thing that hasn’t both borrowed or stolen from other living things, not just human, forever. And vice versa of course. I think it’s more sad to consider yourself as something that exists outside of the rest of the world. Which means of course fighting not to be excluded or trampled on because of those attitudes too.
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Best one in the linky. Thank you for getting it.
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I think that’s the point about ‘indigenous’. It just means people who haven’t been conquered and moved on/massacred/assimilated to the point of disappearance yet.
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I’ve always found obsessions with ethnic identity strange, probably because I have none.
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It means nothing anyway. I am ‘Irish’ on both sides with no other input, but each generation becomes more homogenised. Hair colour is changing, from black or red to mid-brown, and there are few of us with bright blue eyes any more. Every high street has the same multinational stores, Amazon delivers everywhere, people dress the same and aspire to the same notions of comfort. When cultures become the same, what does ethnic difference matter?
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Did they ever matter, except to those trying to wield power? I wonder.
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Did people even know anything outside their very short lives and their very circumscribed area?
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Liked the reach in this,
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The closing lines of your tanka are perfect. One with nature.
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Thanks Ken . As are we all, despite the divisions we create.
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Makes me ask the question… how long does a group of people have to live in a given area to be called indigenouos!
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It’s a good question. Is it first come first served? Everyone came from somewhere else originally, leading back to the same source. I know I dont feel like any place is “mine” partly because I’ve moved around so much. And I have no ethnic identity because my ancestors came from many different places. So what does that make me in a world where we are expected to choose a tribe?
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Another good question!
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Each one leads to anothet.
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I think the bigger issue is how we treat those who are different from us!
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Absolutely. Especially when we are really more similar than different.
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Yes!
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“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan (and covered by the Pretenders)
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How can we not?
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I wonder if we need to belong, or is belonging just the trails we are walking?
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I’m still trying to figure that out.
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I live in the same city which I was born… I never planned it this way. Funny how we end up where we do! I like how your art compliments your poetry. 😊
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Thanks Jill. My immediate family seems to have always been on the move, but in fact most people don’t go far. My daughters have already gravitated back to NYC, and will stay if they can. And that’s true of the children of most of my friends, even though most of us grew up in other places.
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