NARRATIVES OF NEW NETHERLAND Part IV
JOURNALS OF JOHN COLMAN

Mate on Dutch Ship Little Fox
Murdered by his Crew in 1611

History is make-believe

"In great fields of mourning
riverine flood drifts to cry,
collects blackened pearls
from bitter flesh inside."

--Ska Nee translated by Edward

August 1644
Rev. Johanes Megapolensis and Samuel Drissius

Tinteywe Atto is the half savage daughter of an
Englishman, John Colman. She is the wife of
Matthew Atkins, a trapper who was out of the
country during the Kieft wars and thus escaped
harm. The woman cruelly suffered forced to
witness the murder of mother and children. Found
almost with God, she survived, gratefully alive,
bore witness to her rape, which may not be true,
considering how little she knows of the Lord
Jesus and the word.

TINTEYWE ATTO:

All my lives are dead except for husband who
will not return. They were murdered by
Swannekens* who set fire to our cabin and took us captive.

*Algonquin for Europeans: "He who comes out of salt water."

My mother was drowned by the devil in Great
River. Three men stripped her, bound and cut her
dead before her spirit drift on river. I did not
resist; I did not know Swannekens had fled
Manitou and the crisp rumbling of the earth that
had taken them dead.

In summer, Manitou whispered that I will bear
Samuel daughter. She says, I will name her,
"she who has not father and mother." She sends
daughter to avenge theft. Child will speak the
lives of skulls besides silver cliffs human
beings made to gather leaves and burn them gray.

There is war in mountain when human beings die.
Manito will not visit the grandchildren of the
grandchildren of the Swannekens. When they hunt
the deer's dream, they know the death rattle of
orphan birds pressed inside throat.

SKA NEE:

I returned to New Netherland
with John and Edward too soon.
When slaughtered I was not
returned to life. I slept on dark
moss in heat, banished
for another thousand years.

TACONIC OROGENY

Edward speaks about
the death of Ska Nee
wife of John Colman

What do the planetary folds
signify when they retract,
to become subtle plot of physic
when death bends time as sleep.

I felt Ska Nee quicken
she made child grow.

She said:

Manitou claimed child
born 400 years late
erased from rings.
I summoned death
to measure death.
I did not stop what could
not happen. Nothing is.

Ska Nee escaped
with John out of sign.

At flood, undressed
in pale late November
coils of air, thin stray
cirrus clouds reflect
lone raft docked
against warped piers
to bang the wooden
shriek of bow rubbed
into open thigh and
bounce twice again

I felt the quick of him
knew only weak hands
and did not hide.

NEW YORK CITY
September 7, 2000

John & Ska Nee
return from 1644
ride Edward out
of chart to dock.

Inside three bridges
forbidden doors open
another vault of what
was below river bed.

At 42nd moraine
silver fish in mirrors;
illusions none recall.

Ska Nee, in your signs
when you drew us,
both men as lovers
inside twins, you caught
blue stones, jewels
became silver bridge
ground in salt with no return.

CLOCK RESTORED

We are time's glass
scattered from journals
erased within truth
sailors marked;
bound by currents
deciphered plain
arranged in flower
spun from grave.

I, Edward, entered Kieft war
sketched against canvas;
I shift, awkward, not sullen
I felt last spell, hex when
we returned, slept outside
unbound from John and
Ska Nee 400 years late
where light is blank
melted in lead upon last
lives known at flood
before Little Fox,
Dutch ship, bound
to Bristol returns.

AVERAGE TIME

Gray rivers settle clay
where uncommon loops
expose hunger while our
bound intellect in leather,
disrupts Swanneken frame.

Is this New Netherland,
stark land, broken
rock unformed race;
one map not colored;
full before empty I,
Edward leap the scow,
casting back terrified
compass to ride the bilge--
return New Netherland
into ocean neither blue
nor green, last survivor
of John Colman's crew.

Can we dear Ska Nee
escape this average time
to swim from tortured
ghost, carrying barest life
from temporal mask arranged;
conquering every ocean home;
naked arms upon wave.