Ndakinna (Our Land) by Joseph Bruchac
You cannot understand our land with maps
Lines drawn as if earth were an animals carcass
Cut into pieces, skinned, divided ,devoured
Though always less eaten than is thrown away
See this land instead with the wind eagle’s eyes
How the river and stream link like sinews
Through a leather garment sewn strong to hold our people
Patterns of flower close the brown soil
Do not try to know this land by roads
Hard lines ripped through old stones
Roads which still call for blood
Not just those who cross, wild eyes blinded
By twin suns startling
The night but also
Those who seek to follow the headlong flow atop
That dark frost
Unthawed by the sun
Those seasons and the insistent lift of the smallest seeds
Seek without ceasing
Space for the old soil
Instead let your feet caress this soil
In the way of the deer whose feet follow and form trails through the ways of
least resistance
Knowing ridges and springs, ways of wind through the seasons
The taste of green twig and tender grass
The sweet scent of rain urged up from moist earth
When you feel this land, when you taste this land, when you hold this land
As your lungs hold your breath
You will be the rattlesnake
Always embracing earth with her passage
You will be the salmon a chant whip through the ripple
You will be the deer mouse small feet
Stitching the night
You will be the bear thunder held in soft steps
When your song sees this land
When your ears sing this land
You will be this land
You will be this land
Assignment 2: Answer the following questions after listening to the poem.
What is the poet saying with his opening line? “You cannot understand our land with maps”
Describe the most colourful image you have in your mind after listening to this poem. Quote the lines that created this image in your head and explain how the language used worked to create this image. (Hint: think about what you learned about descriptive language in Unit 1.)
At the end of the poem the poet repeats the statement, “You will be the land.” What is the author urging us to do? How did he use persuasive language?