Falumphingly Me

frozen footsteps

Falumphingly Me

Frozen footsteps falumphed in snow
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Signs of resistance to suburbian flow
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Like some wandering Jew it seems
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Deep creviced steps under sun beams
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Who forged this new path in winter’s ice?
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Avoiding a sidewalk that shovelled so nice?
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Be it child, or teen or wayward accountant
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Like a rebel she strode, her own course she went
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Why does this deeply impress itself on me?
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Why stop to snap what I happened to see?
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Perhaps my own path in the snow I saw
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Purposely falumphing, breaking unseen law
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Never a straight line, curving this and that
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Effortful, fun, frustratingly unpat
Falumph, falumph, falumph

Am I going anywhere, is there an end?
Falumph, falumph, falumph
Walking a way to somewhere which bends?
Falumph, falumph, falumph

I really have no clue, and there’s the key
Falumph, falumph, falumph
So best to keep being falumphingly me
Falumph, falumph, falumph

 

– Ronald Kok, February 4, 2018

A Year of Creating Dangerously, Day 178: Before the Pow Wow

Before the Powwow

Before the Pow Wow
She was twirling
Lost in dance

Before the Pow Wow
She spun circles
Around the silence

White child free
In the circle of Red
Free to be free

White child free
Arms swinging wide
Across the expanse

Red Welcome Red Grace
White child free
To fancy dance

Red Welcome Red Grace
The space is yours
Be free to be

Dance with ancestors
White child free
To their voice

Dance with ancestors
Prepare the ground
The circle expands

The Spirit takes you
White child free
Wings spread wide

The Spirit takes you
Feel it in the marrow
Beneath your feet

Before the Pow Wow
She was twirling
Across the expanse

Before the Pow Wow
White child free
To fancy dance

Before the Pow Wow by Ronald Kok

Written June 25, 2017 after witnessing my first Pow Wow – Ottawa, Ontario, Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival held on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. I took the photo above and it led me to write these words.