This book contains poems that issue mainly from the poet's experience and perspective as a First Nation Wampanoag member. Raised and educated by his non-native mother, he was also strongly influenced by his Wampanoag grandfather's stories and knowledge of the history of his people. In his thirties he began to travel to learn from elders of nations that lay distant from civilization in Canada and the north and southwest and found from them the wisdom he had found nowhere else. The elders asked him to go where he might be invited and make this wisdom available to all who asked for it, and for five decades, he has continued to travel wherever invited and speak to all who wish to listen.