Quilting a Wild Wail in a Tale of Two Continents

Flower Moon

   Rain thrashed the tin roof. Soggy, a suited, pasty-faced squad shuffled muscling in.

   “KISIPHUWE*!” (*run), hollered Aponi* (*butterfly), obscuring them with a bucket of murky water.

   Triggered, Ahmik* (*beaver), wide-eyed like a leveret, obeyed his mother's trembling, sharp order; bolting rush-seated stools, dove the wobbly table, hid beneath an overturned, weaved pack-basket.

   “Stop, dirty mongrel!” Boomed out, a firm, sour-sweatied hand clawed him.

   Building-sized, trousered-legs towered over four-year-old, sobbing Ahmik. They manhandled him to Uncle Sam’s awaiting motor. An irreversible angst gripped him over a lifetime of car rides.

   Lingering scenes of hit-listed, unhinged children hauled from their Passamaquoddy Dawnland reservation amidst grieving kin and pounding drums: their crushed identities paved the dawn of pre-1978 ‘original sin’.

Buck Moon 

   Blanking Astor’s* (*Ahmik) roots, the Caucasian household were dispatched with him to UK regions, showing skies and lands splintered powerlessly from his own.

   “You’re safe, Astor, with us!” Stumbled Virginia, his stand-in mother.

   “No!” Spat out Astor, coiling a corner.

   “He’ll come round in time!” Nonchalantly added Hudson, her husband.

   Nightmares tortured his bleak childhood, twinned with bed-wetting as flashbacks dissolved into toddler trauma like ice packs. Memories of hugging his burly dad straddling their marbled Appaloosa mount, clouded. Betrayed, Astor tumbled into adolescence like a waning stampede.

Strawberry Moon

   Fast forward, tall, tainted Astor survived; olive eyes hid behind chestnut billowed-haired, masking what stirred within. Strayed, vanishing scenes scarred his stolen early years, an outsider to his grass-roots.

   “I’m no savage! I’m not one of you!” Haunted, Astor hollered, soaked in his nightly dream-like state.

   Flared by survival against heavyset, hormonal school bullies, he pigeon-holed his escape.

   “Leave off!” Lashed out Matt, Astor’s WASP-brother, thick in peer wars.

   “Thanks bro, I’m chill!” Shrugging a burning cheek, Astor wandered off, pained by bloodline family questions; his hushed ‘furniture of self’ drowned like soggy sugar cubes.

   “Wha’s up?” Suby, his closest female friend, whispered in the library.

   “I’m sussing out my birth parents and family! Social services are

 morons. Without my locked, hidden profile, I’m blocked. Who’ll own up to me?” Astor, cast-down, hissed.

         “Meet your free, personal Tech service!” Brightly offered Suby, firing up her Compaq laptop for code-breaking.

   Biting his lip, suddenly nodding, Astor succumbed, turbo-charging ahead.

Hunter Moon

   In a perpetual daze, Astor faced confronting walls and U-turns. The tiers to his identity slid away forcing a nostalgic, living memory to define him like a cosy, warm linen closet. Hazy boat scenes retraced a buried life within his bogus livelihood.

   Within Astor’s daily routine, his proxy parents ghosted his life story.

   “Stop asking, Astor! At 21, you’ll have your records,” Hudson rigidly blasted.

   “Why should I believe you? You’re groomers!” Astor stonily stared into his raw blue eyes, storming out.

   “They stole my whole ME, those government puppets. I’m excluded, culturally raped!” Gritting his teeth, blurting to Suby. “Calling the US will raise suspicions,” letting off steam, he grumbled smacking the table.

   “Whoa! I feel you, mate, that’s heavy. My parents are great with tough secrets! They’ll handle them!” Reassuring Astor, Suby captured the content, sealing their pact.

   In a blink, sleepovers arranged, hurdles, bureaucracy, stumbling blocks ignited; these setbacks brought up F-graded gaps in Astor’s knowledge of his forefathers.

   “My real-family will be strangers. I don’t belong anywhere,” leaked Astor, fists clenching.

   “Now that I get!” Jawed Suby, chewing her inside cheek like a covert rat.

   Ancestral backup spirits needed to sweep in.

Beaver Moon   

   Sentenced to twelve years, six months, Astor’s natural breakthrough at 21 revealed Astor/Ahmik’s confidential file reclaiming his own name on his passport and Passamaquoddy ethnicity.

   “We acted like sheep,” admitted Hudson and Virginia, falling to their knees, disgraced by heinous guilt.

Cold Moon

   “Suby, let’s pack!” Whooping exploded, speedily packing to cross the Atlantic.

   Time mercilessly knocked as regular calls with Ahmik’s biological family revealed his frail mother, Aponi, was in the final stage of kidney failure.

   “Aponi accepts fate, Ahmik. Wish goodbye to blood family she bring into home. Ahmik name on her lips even in sleep,” closed off cousin Kele* (*hawk).

   The race spiralled. Tribal fold acceptance would turn things around.

   “Will they accept me? I'm fake, cursed. Can we reach Aponi?” White-knuckled, Ahmik butted Suby like a gang of lost bison.

Wolf Moon 

   2:30am, three days later, tomorrow escalated.

   Equipped, Ahmik and Suby hemmed damaged, conflicting frontiers.

Snow Moon

   Waiting her child’s return, Aponi nested. The Passamaquoddy women age differently, their skin harden like feet paying tribute to earth.

   Vibrant, Aponi’s emerald eyes shone. Propped up, she cuddled girlhood tunes, gazing out the window, at the stoic Brown Ash tree; Mother nature’s score-keeper to her branded tattoo-marked face pioneering her milestones.

   Bright beads dangled from Aponi’s thin, tinged wrists, chokers, plunging necklaces, adorning endless greyed-hair strands. Robed in a weaved mantle, Aponi, buffeted by family, inclined in tottering magnificence, shuffled threaded, acorn sequin-moccasins, gracing a thinning trodden piste.

   Locals gathered, moodily chanting throat singing, crooning legendary ups and downs.

Worm Moon

   Crossing this 12,000 year-old land, Ahmik continued fretting. Returning to his homeland, he overflowed with surreal emotions. The wild territories drew him towards Aponi, his wikuwossol* (*mother), whose touch, blessing and forgiveness he yearned. Incubating Ahmik’s lost claim, primed to store tributes she’d saved up.

   “Ahmik, my boy, lost no more,” Aponi mouthed snuggling under her faded calico quilt.

Pink Moon

   Once the Land Rover muffled the foothills, Ahmik’s inner-circle, lined-up on the porch, staring through strong faces. Reliving his brutal wrenching, he collapsed at their soft-feathered feet. A howling dog responded.

   Finally rescued, Ahmik’s head cushioned in the matriarch’s lap, ululating, cradled rhythms loosened. Soft drums responded. Tears stumbled over her map-like cheeks.

   “I remembered your voice,” lamented Ahmik, atoned.

   Lulling tones escaped Aponi's tribal tapestries of freckled horses. Filaments of gold-leafed light swayed. Provoked, stomping colts awaited her. Permission to alight granted on her final ride.

   “You waited! Be free, “life-giver”!" Wailed Ahmik to her courageous face, burning teardrops trekking, bonding over a lingering, sweetgrass-scented trail.

   Aponi embarked her uncharted, prophesied wanderlust.