The Songs They Sing

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

This place. . .
I cannot say. . .
Its name is different. . .
for the people
that did not stay.

The bird song
is a different song, 
a song from a different tongue.
Was it music from Potawatomi?
or Ojibwa?
Was it Ottawa?
or Menominee?

This place looked
different then.
Those people’s tongues
are lost again.
They drift in and out
of foxfire embers.
Where are their songs? 
The songs they sing?