The poem emphasizes the violence that Indigenous peoples have experienced. They bleed so much that the speaker still remembers how to heal a wound even though “most people forgot this / when the war ended” (Lines 2-3). Yet this violence is not just genocide and physical violence, it is also cultural and emotional. The ambiguity of “which war you mean” (Line 4) alludes not just to the multitudes of military battles, but also to the internal conflict the speaker is experiencing in her relationship and her life.

While the poem is filled with images of war and violence, the speaker persists. Like rocks and seeds, the speaker holds on to her own beauty and hopes, though they have been dormant and may “take up to twenty years to bloom” (Line 21). Despite concerted efforts to erase her culture, it endures. Knowledge that “most people forgot” (Line 2) have been passed onto the speaker. The memory of the message “their god whispered” (Line 25) is still with the speaker. In the end, her image of a beautiful paradise is that of her people’s land, with wildflowers blooming in the desert and water flooding the dry riverbeds.