Poetry: “Origin Story” and “Hallelujah of a Godless Place” by Claire Maracle
The places we call home are not always the most welcoming, just as the places we go to get clean are among the dirtiest, as Claire Maracle says in these two poems. In their origin story, Maracle outlines a mother and a father, both of whom encourage silence. A mother who is a “hush house,” a facility which stifles loud sound, and a father whose mouth is an “Irish goodbye,” a leaving without saying anything, creates tributaries which, when joined, bring forth a child who is told “not to make a peep.” As for the household itself, in “Hallelujah of a Godless Place,” it’s a place where mildew grows and filth gathers. The succinct nature of the poem, in combination with subtle rhymes, makes it a godless place one can easily store in their memory.
Read Maracle’s poetry below.
Origin Story
My mother is hush house cold/Onkwehonwe*
comes from where it snows
My father gathered streams of consciousness
Tributary madness/mouth an Irish goodbye
I was born in an April blizzard,
mother scorns the sky in my eyes
My name means bright.
When I am five minutes old
Mother sends me downriver
tells me not to make a peep
I drink what might drown me
*We use the term Onkwehonwe to refer to the real people: “All things of the world are real, material things. The Creation is a true, material phenomenon, and the Creation manifests itself to us through reality. The spiritual universe, then, is manifest to Man as the Creation, the Creation which supports life. We believe that man is real, a part of the Creation, and that his duty is to support Life in conjunction with the other beings. That is why we call ourselves Onkwehonwe — Real People” (Akwesasne Notes Mohawk Nation, 1995: 73).
Hallelujah of a Godless Place
There is a ring
around the tub,
hair in the drain,
mildew stained.
The places we go to get clean
are always the dirtiest
bathtubs,
sinks, laundromats
churches.
Claire Maracle
Claire Maracle (they/all) is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, raised as a guest on Muscogee, Osage, and Cherokee land. This experience directly informs their work in rematriation and their conviction that language is the key to transcending displacement. Central to their work is the idea that Indigenous languages are not merely a tool for communication but a land-based technology that carries the embodiment of unconditional love - a living connection to place and more than human intelligence. As Executive Director of Words of the People, they champion creative celebration of living languages.
