Liquidation

A poem by Karin Spitfire, FHLH Board Member

For 36 years I’ve slept on some shore of Penobscot bay

paddle the east and west branches of the Penobscot river

transverse Penobscot county to get to medway, lincoln, the golden road

visit Penobscot marine museum, Penobscot theater company, read Penobscot pilot, smell the Penobscot potato factory, wake up to the weather on bay

Penobscot river watershed covers 8,750 square miles

from bucksport to the canadian/maine border

extends with some easy portages to the Allagash into the st. john

all the way to new brunswick or over to the Kennebec down to popham

and the bay, from the bay you can get anywhere, Schoodic, Monhegan

I know a few of the carrying places, can read the waters some

know where I might find wild berries, sight eagles, great blue heron,

from castine to isle au haut, brooklin to camden hills, belfast to mt.desert

know where I might go swimming Megunticook, Pemaquid, Naskaeg

names I have learned to say, but none we appropriate like Penobscot.

a mispronunciation of the people’s name for

themselves, the river, the land, Panawahpskewi,

meaning the river, the land, the people

The people, here for some 10,000 years, 90% annihilated by incoming immigrant germs, the remaining estimated of 10,000 in 1700,

fought with the colonist in their revolution, now number under 2500

cut down by genocidal scalp bounties, war, alcohol, child abduction,

and the continual squeeze of whites for resources

The Penobscot treatied into a 22 square acres of their homeland,

a swath of the river and its islands from medway to old town

now the state that dubs itself maine

claims this stretch, the river, does not include the water.

enjoy this beautiful day

Panawahpskewi Land, Panawahpskewi River, Panawahpskewi People.

Embattled v. Embittered: Belfast councilors and frustrated citizens face off over perambulation