For Alison

Genetics don't lie
We are all
African
all humans
the offspring
of a hundred black
African women

Our pasts
bundled together
in shared DNA
found in
the fire of the coureurs de bois
the persistence of the prairie settler
the hope of the escaped American slave
the adaptiveness of the Inuit
the fusion of the Metis

Neither the African part
nor the Canadian part
sits island like
in isolation

No matter what our route
to today
We are all Canadian
We are all African

This poem was inspired by the work of the National Geographic in universal DNA data tracing, Dr Chris diCarlo's presentation "We Are All African", and my reaction to Alison, a black Canadian whom I met in West Africa, who would not trace her origins beyond the slave trade.