Moving in Speaks of Reclaiming

¶ … Moving in speaks of reclaiming one's lost heritage. The narrative begins with a discussion about hiding, characterizing fish as monsters, the monsters related to memories that consume us. This opening portrays a vision of modern Native life that is largely negative, where the past consumes the people today, casting their souls into hiding places. The negative themes of modern life are illustrated further as well in the next section. The nations are tethered today, a references to the reservations, and contrasted with a time in the past when this was not so.

The narrative then moves to a happier story, but a moral one and one that is intended to illuminate the reader. The narrative discusses finding one's ancestry. The method of doing so is part of the process itself -- one cannot one ancestry without following the ancient customs. The narrative concludes with positivity, contrasted against the dark opening. Those who are happy, who have claimed their heritage according to their own rules, are no longer bound. The tethers hide one's memory of one's land because the system is unnatural. Removing the tether, becoming unbound, is symbolic of finding culture by removing the bounds placed upon one by the dominant culture. The concept of being bound is expounded upon in the next line as well -- that living wholly in the present is not something that is natural in the native culture. One must begin to change one's view of time in order to leave the tether behind and rekindle one's self-identity. This is an important concept for the audience, because the audience is assumed to be Native, and to be at least somewhat bound, afraid almost to see what is in the wider world and thereby recapturing one's own culture.

The use of natural imagery in this poem is critical to the message. Throughout we read of trees, lakes, fish, turtles, stones and pine needles. There is very little non-natural imagery used. This is deliberate, as the poet is attempting to convey that the natural world is part of Native culture, and to find one's culture is to embrace the natural world for its traditional role. It serves as a source of everything -- in this case the natural world in the form of stones, pine needles and leaves is the key that unlocks the doorway into one's past generations and culture. It is important, the narrative implies, that the culture and the natural world are seen as extensions of each other, and not separated the way they are in the dark, tethered world where land is property.

The poem also conveys this spiritual re-awakening as a journey, whose passage is marked by a beginning and end that juxtaposes one's view of the fish as a marker. The fish are monsters in the beginning but at the end are nothing to fear as they are just funny-looking fish. The transition with respect to nature is the journey that arises from answer-seeking. The narrative highlights that when one undertakes the right methods of seeking answers, then they can find those answers and reconnect with their past.