In the sea of old cliches,
A phrase you’d hear adults say—
Many moons ago. You asked
Or were told, off-handedly,
That this was how Indians
Counted time—by moons, not years.
It was just an expression.
It meant a long time ago
But not really. Half silly,
Half spooky, like anything
Connected to Indians—
Arrowheads, burial mounds,
Old river, town, or lake names,
Like Pequannock, where you lived,
1960s New Jersey.
A child is a traveler,
Anxious, aware of being
New to things, figuring out
Local customs. You couldn’t
See the sense of counting moons.
Your thoughts didn’t make the link
From them to their units, months.
And they were never numbered.
People said, three weeks ago,
You’re almost seven years old,
In just a couple of days.
But if they said many moons
It was some kind of a joke
At the expense of people
Who were now collective ghosts,
The Indians who lived here
Like moonlight, haunting the ground.
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