To Hell Gate

Kahnawake widows and women gather. Wise and wizened. A tradition of women to set the rules: 
                                 Never again will all our men work on a single project. They will boom out.

Out past the ice-booms of Lake Erie cities. Out past Huron, Superior, Michigan, and Ontario. 
Out past the Palisades and straits.

Diabo (once D’Aillaboust) travels down the Hudson for work. Joins the Hell Gate crew, beginning 
a Mohawk migration to 
                                   Ka’nón:no – Splint trees in the water.  A city on stone. 


But how have we come—from Red-shouldered Hawk to Hell Gate? 
Where, the fisher? The Acadian flycatcher, black bear, bobcat? The owl and Ovenbird?

If river is timeline, 
we have come from Atiron:tak from the forests and mountains 
                    from the Bark-eaters to a place beyond the pastoral.