Mohawk - Lee Harvey Osmond

I’m flying at the speed of my imagination

Heading down the 401 towards the Quebec border, on my way

I’m gonna meet my sisters Lynn and Tracy for the very first time

The saliva in my mouth is thick like motor oil as I sit in the backseat of the

car

I’m nervous, practicing my smile

I stare in the rearview mirror slowly, silently mouthing the words

From a mohawk baby to a mohawk man

Here I stand, here I stand

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I’m a mohawk man

And the car rolls on and on

And the car rolls on

I’m on my way to the mystical land of my missing family, Kahnawake

The patch of freedom that lies beneath the Mercier bridge

The home of my mother, my father and my ancestors

The land of shapeshifters, cornbread, and steak

Ironworkers and all the legends that came to life

In stories and gossip around my kitchen table when I was just a little kid

From a mohawk baby to a mohawk man

Here I stand, here I stand

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I’m a mohawk man

And the car rolls on

And the car rolls on

And the car rolls on

The car rolls on

I look out between the front seat and out through the windshield

And the fog that I’ve been living in my entire life

Begins to lift

I know this place

In fact, I dreamt myself here as a kid

Dreams that were fantastic

Dreams that took me to times and places that I knew were real

I’d fly through the black, along the shores of the Saint Lawrence Seaway

And come swooping down on these roads on the back of John Lazare

My grandfather, sturdy and sure of himself

Not a word spoken, but I could hear him singing as he carried me

I’d climb down off his shoulders and walk to the rhythm of broken chains

With the reserve dogs barking behind me

I went through the deepest blues and greens

The greens of graveyards and step into the black shadows cast by the great

bridge

In my dreams, I was safe surrounded by my ghosts

In my dreams, I was free

In my dreams, I was exactly where I was supposed to be

From a mohawk baby to a mohawk man

Here I stand, here I stand

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I’m a mohawk man

The car rolls on

And the car rolls on

The car rolls on

And the car rolls on

The car rolls on

The car rolls on, rolls on

One, two

One, two, three, four