Though a French priest be unworthy,
Of a heathen to sing praises,
Nonetheless I must regale you,
With the story of a War-Chief.

Brave and true Anishinaabe,
Once he plotted a rebellion
'Gainst the hated English redcoats,
But it ended in his own fall.

Speculated have I here on
How his destiny unfolded,
How the Afterlife did greet him,
How he rises and he sets there...

"O! You splendid, splendid bastards.
To the moon you've lashed Bwon-diac!
Roped a chieftain to his anguish,
Deposed him to Purgatory."

"To this orb I have been fastened
Tracing circles in the heavens
Rising east and setting westly
Round the river of my defeat."

"I spy on your island-country
From my lunar perch above it.
Had I only known then of it,
Grandiosity of England."

"Self-important little isle
With cupidity afflicted;
Were you given some divine right?
Why stand redcoats on my shoreline?"

"And the country of my father,
King of France, Odawa brother,
Sits beneath your white cliffs waiting,
There compelled to look upon you."

"And your rivalry spilled over
'Cross the seas into your New World.
French and English competition
In Anishinaabewaki."

"I am now the Wolf Moon, Snow Moon,
Am the Maple, the Strawberry;
Am the Harvest and the Hunter's,
Am the Corn Moon and the Blood Moon."

"Please explain to me, I beg you
What has happened to my people,
Brave Odawa population?
You besmirched their holy places!"

"Do those birch canoes still glide on
Lapping waters of the Great Lakes?
Steal my braves into your forts and
Empty skulls of petty dreaming?"

"On this night-sun rage and seethe I,
My head throbbing from my fate still:
Your paid Illinois assassin
Whose blunt tamahaac did fell me."

"Are you looking back upon me?
Can you see me in this station?
The Odawa sachem exiled
For your English fascination?"

"When the moon-dance in the night sky
Beckons to your greedy eyeballs
Do you see a distant shadow?
Do you hear a curdling war-whoop?"

"Without end I face my torment,
Relive ever my last battle,
The Rebellion as you called it,
Seventeen and Three-and-Sixty."

"Lest the death-scene be forgotten,
Let us name them, let us name them,
Nine French forts upon the rivers,
Very lifeblood of our nation."

"Stockade sentries of our father
For his black-robed priests intended.
Christian Crucifix they taught us,
Though they honored our Great Spirit."

"As I think back and remember
On the first time I did listen,
I believed not in Salvation
Rather in the Crucifixion."

"And much pain has been inflicted,
In my binding to this crescent,
Humbled chieftain in the night sky,
Between this world and the next one."

"But the circumstances worsened.
The French king his forts surrendered
To the haughty, mighty English,
On their way of life a cursing."

"Let us count them, let us count them.
Fort Miami and St. Joseph's,
The Sandusky and Ouatanon,
Sault Ste. Marie and Presqu'Isle."

"Out upon our rivers see them,
Fort Detroit, Edward Augustus,
And site of lacrosse deception,
Fort Michilimackinac stands."

"In the Flower Moon I started
Sieging Detroit from the river.
Fort commander Henry Gladwin
Wore the scalp I yearned to raise up."

"Other forts the English gave back.
Eight forts total were retaken.
But for six moons Major Gladwin
Stolen Fort Detroit defended."

"In the Falling Leaf Moon season
With the long cold winter waiting
Did I peer into my spirit -
It is over, it is over."

"At the Council of Three Fires
Was a bittersweet required.
The French king had abdicated.
Just Bwon-diac could be counted."

"You must know this, all my People,
In the Earth an Eye is hiding.
I can see from here its ire
Looking out upon all of us."

At the outpost, at the outpost,
Where no English were to be found,
Bwon-diac would live his days out
'Midst the southern Illinoisan.

But the English had no equal,
Neither New World nor the Old World.
Hated redcoats pressing westward
Standing brazen in their wigwams.

Must they hunt him? Must they kill him,
Noble savage who defied them?
Must they vanquish every vestige
Of the unencumbered spirit?

So they got him in the forest,
Laid his noble skull wide open.
Where they laid him, where they laid him
Not a man can say for certain.

In meandering this meantime,
Struggles he to loose his hand up
English skull of Henry Gladwin
With casse-tete to rip asunder.

Unto such a fate Bwon-diac,
The great war-chief of th'Odawa
Grunts and groans across the heavens
Henry Gladwin's skull his vessel.

Have you heard with startled ears the
Deathless war-cry of Bwon-diac,
Fearsome ripple through the Planets,
For the Vengeance of his People?

His revolving eyes do well up,
At his Nation's humors draining,
Mighty forest of the Great Lakes,
The Odawa, upright fossils.