When I was a girl we pronounced it wrong, Digga-degga-wash.
There’s a lake and a river and a basin, but the sign just says Digdeguash.
My brothers and I always anticipated that word, and I (the smallest)
practiced it silently to myself, hoping I’d get it right, either
fast, lightly—Digdeguash, like Michelangelo—or starting slow
and ending fast, like Take Five Saxophone—Dig, Ga, DEG-a-wash.
Whichever you chose, it was five-syllable glee that struck the top
of your mouth and the tip of your tongue and made you want to say it
all the way from Saint John (called Wolastok by the Maliseet)
to Saint Andrews (called Qonasqamkuk by the Passamaquoddy).
I said it again nine years ago, then four years ago, back for my father’s
interment and then my mother’s. The earth is reddish there, but I can’t
claim it, really. Me and my ancestors of the lighthouses, ships
and docks, we were semi-God-fearing and full-on-cod-eating
but I never followed that sign to wherever Digdeguash was
and I had no idea who those people were, or what we did to them.