Thursday, December 28, 2006

COWBOYS AND INDIANS

I measure time by color of the sun
Flaming golden white and crimson amber
And shadow print of the giant maple
Slipping across fields of purple flowers

You measure time by sequence of numbers
shackling your hand to the tasks of your day
How could we agree on a time and place
between wild flowers and ticking of clocks

DIANE

We were wild flowers growing in the same field
sturdy enough to survive flood and drought
Needing no one to give us special care
Tough little rez kids with hearts of petals

Alcohol led you through dark city streets
To dance with foreign shadows on the beach
Silently stealing the life from your blood
He sent you home with a handful of days

Death picked you too early for his bouquet
A blazing wild poppy growing in sand
I missed your wake but sent purple flowers
For your big sister to plant in your stead

You waited in that place just beyond sleep
"You didn't get to say goodbye to me
So I came to you one last time my friend"
Your laughter rumbles across time and death

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

TRANSFORMATION

(FOR ANN RUSK)

Sun's heat ripples above chilly waters
Killer Whales leap and spout, circling to feast
On bright salmon returning home to spawn
Silver bodies heavy with wisdom won
exploring the earths cold briny borders

Sun and wind condense sea to vapor
Mountains gather clouds above ancient glaciers
Giving birth to crystal singing rivers
meandering down mountains and valleys
Salmon hatch and turn on impulse to the sea

Fingers of mist reach into the ocean
harvesting stories to paint a new sky
The odyssey of a single raindrop
From mountain to ocean to cloud once more
Is the same path traveled by you and me

LIFE ON THE REZ #3

(Election year 1996)

The Indian Red
Sun lights up the sand beaches
Morning tide recedes
revealing oysters and clams
I fill my bucket for lunch

Politicians vie
to be president of this
violent nation
Swearing oaths in the fresh blood
of the jobless and homeless

American planes
bomb nations made of sand
Tupac is gunned down
An unwanted baby starves
No one wants her anymore

An angel has died
Bones snapped by mother's own hands
Someone has raped her
No one heard her screams of pain
Death gave her wings to fly free

The president's race
Bill and Bob's great adventure
Pledges of vapor
What does it matter to me
I still work hard for my lunch

LIFE ON THE REZ #2

(FOR LI PO)

When you ask me why
I live tame here on the rez
I laugh in my heart
For I have seen the beauty
of irridescent red dawns

I held in my hand
A brilliant butterfly
That landed only
For an instant to greet me
And bless my hands with her wings

Four eagles circle
Riding the high wind currents
I pray for a gift
to soar high as they
to see the total picture

A family of deer
Eat apples from my tree
Gracefully stealing
Sweet crunchy juicy red fruit
Trusting me to be gentle

White clouds tell stories
with moving pictures changing
with the whim of winds
First Thunderbird, Killer Whale
Hunted by first giant man

Wild roses perfume
Early summer air with sweet
Scents of bright freedom
Growing where they choose to be
Living on sun and pure rain

When you ask me why
I live tame here on the rez
A lone cedar tree
watches the river flow by
And is content to stand firm

TREASON

Who is the recreant
to abandon our people
as the mama bird
pushes the deformed fledgling
from her nest
to die of cold and hunger
for money or approval
of bleached authority

BUSH'S WAR

Old men say it is the measure of a man
That weighs the courage in his heart
Like the price of an orange after the hurricane
It is the young man that comes home
With burned lungs and wild eyes
It is the young woman that didn't come home
They found her in a shallow grave
There was no one in that land so far away
to cry for her or cut their hair
No medal or free tuition for her children
Pays the penalty of our cry and ruined hearts
It is the language of sorrow we all understand
As the grandmother wails, "Why? Why? Why?"
As the father carries his limp staring son
From the dusty rubble that was once their home
It is our own youth taught to torture
Lead the enemy on a leash like a dog
So he learns his place in the New World Order
It is a lie told by the wealthy
As the price of gasoline
Soars beyond my reach

COUSIN

Skinny as a pup dumped in the country
Wild eyes rearranging reality
talking and laughing inside herself
"They say I'm not pregnant. Don't know nothing."
She rears and throws each word at the clinic
Like the pitcher she was before the drugs
She turns slowly, her black eyes lock on mine
The spiral of time s tops, hangs on my breath
She knows me as I storm her rippling world
I can see my aunt's face staring from hers
from my heart where I stored it when she died
"I have two boys. They take good care of me."
Eyes plead to keep this bit of illusion
"They like t o fish and hunt. My boys are kind."
She flails her arms painting her sons portraits
on the air with words from shattered vision
I sing to summon her mind and soul back
into the empty shell so close to death
Her eyes focus through tears poured directly
from her beating heart releasing her sons
My hands peel off her lifetime of sorrow
I trade it for the Creator's love
I can only pray that she finds the strength
to play out her game like the rest of us
Striking out, hitting triples, stealing home

GRANDMOTHER MOON AND MIDLIFE CRISIS

Grandmother moon guards my precious secrets
And waits patiently for me to visit

A tall thin raven-eyed Montana Boy
Shimmers in Grandmother's silvery rays

He painted the same stories that I wrote
Star Woman and Earth Mother wore my face

Alcohol dulled his sorrow I couldn't reach
I wouldn't live as my mother and sister

Shackled by love and habit to a dream
I fled full knowing into my future

Every pathway appeared clear and easy
Flawless as the full moon on winter snow

But Time outran me, stealing a headstart
when I wasn't paying attention

My path was rocky, sometimes straight up hill
Overgrown with fragrant, pink, wild roses

A gauntlet of bouquets, perfume, and thorns
My path was filled with beauty, suns first light

I earned my vision and I sang my song
I cried for friends who died too soon, too young

Murdered by alcohol and stolen dreamsm
On my path I found a hummingbird's nest

Tonight the full moon summons me to dream
A fleeting glimpse of trails I did not take

To feel the warmth of the sun on my back
To know I took the one path best for me

To see a lean, black-eyed Montana Boy
Before alcohol silenced his laughter

ASCENDANCE OF A STARGAZER

She sketched your image and scribbled your name
In sand above the tideline one last time
She summoned all the bitter memories
Of broken promises and excuses
The many times she offered compassion
visions of her sacrifice at your shrine
That helpless victim doesn't live here now
She awoke at daybreak and realized
The suns brilliance shone upon her first
Catching glints of the power she would be
Meteor showers and comets name her
Dreaming Woman Who Awoke From The Dream
To explore rediscovered nebulas
Turquoise suns and saffron skies just because
she decided to turn your world upside down
No one else chooses her own happiness
She writes books of poetry, sings off key
She draws beautiful pictures of herself
Sometimes coloring outside the drawn lines
That's okay now, perfection's not constant
She reaches for God and finds her within
She holds eternity in her hand
Turns it over and sees her reflection
She can smile and feel emotions again
Immortality is now remembered
It was only for the experience
You were part of the plan Great Master
Teaching self reliance is your grand gift
to her, setting yourself free to soar high
as Raven and steal the sun one more time

1492 - 1992

I read your angry letter
in the paper today
You don't like the name
Native American you say
That we came from China
Arriving just before
You set your foot upon
This sacred land that day
We were created from this earth
Out of the Mother's body
Life breathed in by Creator Father
Sacred life, FOREVER HERE
You came here in flight
From your kings and churches
Let free from prisons
Banished from your homelands
Seeking freedom and equality
You took away mine
To build your myths and lies
You call it American History
Little truth has survived
Columbus did not discover
A land never lost
Do you tell your children
Of small pox blankets
Genocide you can't deny
Deliberately introduced to
THE PEOPLE with no immunity
Do you see the innocent child
trapped by the horrors
of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Genocide was not invented
by that mad man in Germany
Your greed steals land and resources
You cannot hold a thing lightly
Life struggles in your grasp
You don't like the name
Native American
Our name is THE PEOPLE
Protectors of this land

WOUNDED KNEE WOMEN

From Grandmother and mother to young girl
We answered our Lakota sisters call
From the bright lights of New York City streets
To the briny beaches of the Elwha
To draw a mortal line in the same snow
And frozen earth that took the Ghost Dancers
Home on songs that fly between blazing worlds
That split and left us lost on the false road
to barren reserves that couldn't feed us
Our souls starved for outlawed ceremonies
That waited in the glowing dreamtime mists
To revive our numbed spirit eyes and ears
with new visions of a luminous world
of eagles, buffalo, salmon and corn
lit from within by our love and prayers
We dance in ancient memory to drums
thundering from our wild unbroken hearts
And sing of our escape from the nightmare
of the backward world of broken treaties
Shattered families scattered on the winds
Gathered whole into the sacred circle
Prophesied by the ancient Ghost Dancers

WOUNDED KNEE 1973 #6

We had to empty our pockets of knives
Lighters, flashlights, all things unnatural
To enter the world of our grandfathers
An ethereal place where dreams and songs
are the language spoken by Spirit
They wrapped and bound Crow Dog in a star quilt
and laid him face down on the cold hard floor
All light was blacked out forcing us inward
The Spirits prophesied, preached like grampa
Our starving souls, baby birds, open mouths
for food foraged by our eagle mother
Drums, rattles, birds, deer, little points of light
whirred past like the rings of a hoop dancer
We spent the night in the realm of Spirit
Lost children finding our way home at last

WOUNDED KNEE 1973 #5

We walked out past government sentries
Victorious and frightened in one breath
Flares popped bloomed and fell but never found us
An armoured personnel carrier loomed
A mammoth dragon tracking us through bad dreams
We collapsed in the hardened fluffs of snow
Hundred year old frozen ghost dancers
Two young white men jumped down, lit cigarettes
City eyes blind to Indians in the night
Their cigarettes glowed like serpent eyes
The snow crunched as they drove to their next post
We rolled and exhaled and stretched our stiff joints
We walked all night to a friendly family
They hand published an underground paper
They had been fire bombed while we walked out
A few weeks later he would be murdered
I heard while I was applying for college

WOUNDED KNEE 1973 #4 (For Ida Stuntz)

Ida Mae's husband died at Pine Ridge
He had abandoned her and their two sons
To follow a golden dream of freedom
Gleaming on the horizon out of reach

He fell in a flood of perjured bullets
His young man's spirit offered one last time
In sacrifice for The People's release
From the nightmare of fermented treaties

His sons found the whiskey path to manhood
A staggering dance on the edge of clans
Whose songs are earned in sacred visions
And dances to bring back the new year's sun

A lonely widow counts her days like stars
and deadens her pain with cases of beer
And treasures her time of pure love and joy
with memories before the warrior's death

Monday, December 25, 2006

WOUNDED KNEE 1973 #3

The feds have cut our electricity
They hold our food and medical supplies
Hunger sits now at our table
Snow will melt to water, we have seen it
Grampa says hard work keeps our bodies warm
Songs and prayers flow through us like fire light
We are young and believe in prophecies
Of a world filled with green flowering trees
The world rolled and split on our prayers one night

Uranium is still the earth's secret
Waters are healing prayers and medicine
Columbus fell off the edge of the world
Was rescued by a band of Zeta Greys
searching for an endless supply of fear
To cure their dying world with emotion
The sky and plains thunder with buffalo
Our rivers over flow with bright salmon
We are still free to dance and laugh and laugh

WOUNDED KNEE 1973 #2

You asked me what I did at Wounded Knee
"What is the woman's role in history?"
"Did you hold a rifle on the rooftop?"
"Did you know my friend, he said he was there?"
"He wore a denim coat, and cowboy boots."
"He likes to tell stories and laughs a lot."
"He's vain about his braided hair with an
Eagle feather fluttering in the wind?"
"Did you meet anybody famous there?"

Breathing icicles, hunger thundering
Death guessing our names chasing away sleep
Frozen fingers stitched quilts from old clothes
We made the men trigger finger mittens
A teacher from Brooklyn started a school
Cooks made magic with plain macaroni
For seventy one days of sweet freedom
We laughed and danced and prayed on a frozen world
Made from our fate dreamemd by the Ghost Dancers

WOUNDED KNEE 1973

The AIM war cry thunders across our lands
Igniting pride trampled by history
Gathering The People lost in cities
Survivors of Relocation Pogroms
Reservation politics got the rest
The BIA guards the sacred door to
education opening just a crack
Selecting a chosen few to squeeze through
To swim the holy waters reserved for
The rich and the privileged and the white
Nixon's administration's sponsoring
Blonde prostitutes for the NTCA
White kids, now fully awake, demonstrate
To stop the war,, and killing of all life
DB Cooper's still missing, he got away
Dennis says he's coming to Wounded Knee
Humor overcomes the cold and hunger
At dark time we watch the tracers come in
As if they were shooting stars to carry
our prayers higher, lighting the way home
It is the right time for youth, truth and dreams
Circled by US Marshalls I AM FREE
In Amerika Freedom of the press
is one of the myths of democracy
News blackouts hang over South Dakota
It covers deeds and deals of complicity
No one wants to hear angry Indians
Who refuse to live the lie anymore
Sober, articulate, young and angry
Long haired and armed, educated by you
Does the face of fear wear a red headband
We are Crazy Horse's people come back
Joseph and Geronimo live in us
The Tribal Chairmen's Association
Backed by the feds, playing GOOD INDIANS
Denounce the militants: troublemakers
Agitators, cover up the story
Heat up left over lies, serve it again
No matter. The vanished tell no stories
Survivors do, painted in poetry

MORE THAN A UTERUS

I am First Woman
giving birth to Creation
Bloody and boiling
Hope and desperation
The promise of
The cedar tree in the seed
My tears
formed First Man
Incomplete
Without Me
I am Clan Mother

I am Compassionate Woman
I forgive
Your fantasies
Of barbie bodies
The Truth is
Bodies rounded by
Childbirth
Grownup
The rapes, massacres
And final abandonment
excavate our face
I am Awe Inspiring Woman

I am Warrior Woman
Truth telling
Butt kicking
Star Walking
History Making
Fighting Back
No one gets by me
So The People may live
I am Aboriginal Woman

I am Medicine Woman
Painted with red ochre
Soul Finding
Whale Riding
Eagle calling
Butterfly singing
I am Loving Woman

I am Defender Woman
Law abiding
Law breaking
Freedom Fighter
Snitch Jacketed
Assassinated
Yet I live
I am Sustaining Woman

I am Lady Chief
Carrying the souls
of The People
through floods
and burning droughts
Until you
are ready
For the burden
I am Every Woman

CINDERELLA, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW

She wears the fire's ash in defiant pride
The sacred face paint of her grandmothers
Outlawed by the murderous invaders
To kill the Indian but save the race

The Chief's first law is to feed the people
And to carry their souls through the hard times
When some lost their way when the world changed
And The People disappeared with the mourning fog

We were bound by vows that circled and flew away
Paper meant nothing so we marked the spot
With a rock big enough to hold our intent
And remember the words spoken that day

Four generations later we met them in court
To reinterpret the vows of our grandfathers
To measure the words with money not honor
They took half of what the Creator gave us

CINDERELLA MD

Your work is sacred the old ones told her
Do it in prayer and humble service
You can't use your hands both to hurt and help
Choose carefully the path you will travel

Do you choose or are you the chosen one
Do you see the terrifying beauty
Of the veiled world where life dances at night
Do your hands burn with the gift of healing

Does your Spirit breach and keen for the one
Cut loose by the torment of betrayal
Do you mourn for the ones who will not cry
Do you buckle under the weight of grief

Sing the healing songs of our Ancestors
Dance to the throbbing heart of Creation
Spin with the rotation of Mother Earth
Until you can fly with your own power

COMMANDER CINDERELLA

Her name is She Who Watches By The Fire
The flame spit sparks in a gutteral tongue
In an antique tale that spoke to her soul
And soothed the weariness that gnawed her bones

The Cultural War is a small river
That overflowed: genocide, education
assimilation, and animal rights
And threatened to flood her home one more time

The new battle was fought in the press
Generals of hate called for a race war
Against our Traditional, ritual
Ceremonial and spiritual life

It was their fears that created her
A warrior princess battle hardened
SAVAGE, a creative writing major
She brandished her pen like the fabled sword

In that discord she found her legacy
As enduring as our creation site
And place of vision-quest buried beneath
a dam to drive a mill built above us

Our bones broken and jumbled like their word
"As long as the grass grows and water flows"
Revictimization and eternal drought
We're still here, praying, singing and dancing

CELESTIAL SOUVENIR

I flew too close
to the sun with wings
carved of cold wax
and fell head first
into the moving
grey mists of
ancient stories told
again and again
as Time circles
and swirls in and out
weaving my new wings
of gossamer ambitions
To soar on songs
Cedar smoke and drumbeats
into the clear
constellations of
phosphorescent legends
My scarred hands clutch
gleamings bits of stars
To hold these gifts
I must share words
stolen from their
Stellar Guardians.

THE ORDINARY WORLD

Black clouds smolder and rumble warnings
As Thunderbird flees his cave to hunt orca
He blinks his big red eye and lightning strikes
Black and white Killer Whales shoot to the sky
They dive and beat the water in challenge
Thunder rolls as leviathans wrestle

I light candles and huddle safe in bed
with books of poetry written by friends
I turn dog-eared pages and taste the words
hot sweet and sour burning away hunger
She has bright dancing horses in her soul
whinnying and snorting, chasing her on

We play and balance on the world's thin edge
an owl dance with Dog Soldiers in glasses
Our grandmothers wouldn't understand the words
Twined as in cedar and sweetgrass baskets
They laugh behind hands at unnamed passions
They whisper of boys long dead who sang love songs

The drums of battle fade into heartbeat
As each bloody warrior retreats back home
Burning stars and moon reclaim the cleared sky
Magnetic air recharges my tired soul
With tonight's magic of ancient story
Urging me to tell it one more time

FIRST AWAKENING

My home wasn't shattered like my heart
Into this tiny reservation without longhouses
Five hundred year old sentinel cedars still
Plume mountains and hills and dance in the sunset
Driven silver salmon struggle upstream
Glimmers of instinct jump the untamed flow
Eagles sail high winds on ebony wings
Powerful talons seize a soaring salmon
Crackling fires shoot sparks into the night sky
Drums, songs and dancers sustain earth's heartbeat

So it was before the time of darkness:
Dull matchbox HUD houses, alcohol and drugs
Shorn mountains and hilltops plundered by greed
Mother Earth's lungs gasping gray oily air
Engineered salmon crowd out the Native
Wild runs die and starve the Indian soul
A deserted aerie crowns a lone pine
The exiled eagles hunt for a safe home
We sing new songs to the One Creator
Who changed names like a gambler switches bones