Take away their power
and ignore their pain.

But culture is perennial,
and no practice is in vain.

You’ve cut the line
but the call is still coming through.

Change is coming.
With or without you.

Take away their language,
but the land will teach them the way.

Knowledge and memories,
will always stay.

Try to obstruct their knowing,
haven’t you heard?

Your graining insistence,
is quiet like the blue bird.

The river is flowing,
the sun is still stirred.

Ancient lines of wisdom,
what are you afraid they might learn?

Your resistance to beauty,
beyond absurd.

When will you let them find freedom?
Surrounded by the colonial herd.

Smoke drumrolls dance,

indigenous
verve,

observed
conserved
preserved
reserved

a shaman's stance

reduced

to an historical prance.

The world grew sick
it happened so quick
and so the people prayed
in spiritual foundations laid

the people went to see
the healers to be set free
hurt souls seek relief
and beyond belief-
     ~the healers got sick

songs lathered in Purell
as the death tolls swell
ringing out the Sioux band’s
cared for with gloved hands
    ~hands that caught rain
       now wracked with pain

Standing Rock tumbles down
as fits of coughs drown
    “My girl, I don’t know what to do-“
the words of a dying healer
once free to roam
in death
kept far away from her  home

When they pass on
all that knowledge gone
the words and ways of old
lost as voices go cold

Breath taken away
also yesterday
is gone around the bend
ways of old set to end
     -the sacred fire untended

No more secret Candy
or cherished smiles
veterans vanquished
peacemakers in pieces:

Porcupine
Bear Soldier
Running Antelope
Cheryl and Jesse Taken Alive

lovers from the start
Cheryl and Jesse died
only a month apart
holes in the Taken Alive heart

Their moccasins remain still
big shoes for others to fill
Standing Rock’s hills rolling
as graves keep filling
    
  ~the healers got sick
     hands that caught rain
     now wracked with pain
     the sacred fire untended

... still, the fire burns
out of the ashes, Nola, a child
of those Taken Alive learns
to hear the call of the wild

Young pup’s paws will fill the boots in time
though Standing Rock’s still,
still it stands
rain to be caught by fresh hands
new ears record the tree’s chime

“We’re still here,” Nola said
Taken Alive stands still
at Standing Rock
~
NM
01/15/21

One day you left your home
Among with all you hated most;
You left old lullabies unsung
And swore you'd lose your mother tongue
As shivering, small hands still clung
To one life free of ghosts.

After your ghosts had been released
You filled up all the holes.
You lived a life of mostly ease
And never knew you paid your fees
For ghosts are mostly memories
And languages are souls.

when we first came to this land,
blood was shed for our entitlement.
when we first came to this land,
we took the things that were never ours
and trampled its native growth.
when we first came to this land,
we instilled in it a sickness that may never be cured;
we tarnished sacred lands with greed we call virtue,
and when we did so, we stood on the throat of humanity.

there are some people who are doomed to repeat history.
there are some people who will trample native growth,
spread sickness,
and stand on the throats of our people.
with the heavy weight of six centuries upon our shoulders
we stand,
a hobbled nation no longer able to stride,
heads held high,
through this sea of blood without meeting challenge.

with six centuries passed, we commit genocide anew.
it is not the native growth that suffers,
but the very peddlers of greed who are infected
by the sickness of consequence.
but they alone will not suffer.
as we march through this new iteration of history
wearing death masks instead of cloth,
thousands of innocents lose their lives
in a battle of which they were never a part.

the single day that we dedicate to gratitude,
the one day of the year some remember
to give thanks in between passing heavy dishes,
is not a commemoration of discovery.
it is a commemoration of consequence and greed.
and six centuries later,
it is our own people who we will massacre with the cry of freedom.