Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux
They plodded aimlessly forward,
prodded by the soldiers who kept
yelling, "Keep Moving." Poor visability
and freezing cold. The Army, as with
the last group moved to the new lands,
had no reserve of food, or blankets,
or outer clothing. Creeks were forded
by wading through the water, some
waist high, in the bitter cold.
Illness was everywhere and people kept
dropping off beside the trail, unable to
continue. The Army pushed all in the column
to move forward and left the people with a
bitter taste as they moved off from their
loved ones, left to die beside the trail.
No dignity left, no great nation, none to
help, just tears, just grief.
Thousands were destined to die as they joined
the removal from their fertile Mississippi lands
to the unknown Indian Territory. An old man and
his wife fell and were dragged to the side of the
trail by the soldiers, as the column struggled on,
ever foward through the snow and the mist. The old
man looked up and said, Great Spirit, help us over
to the land of our youth, where our nations and
warriors were strong, where we were young
and proud.
In the bitter cold, the old man held his wife in his arms
until they were frozen to death. As the column struggled
by, the bodies were slowly covered by snow until nothing
was left but a mound of snow. And all was still except
for the whisper of the falling snow and the howling of
the wind.
Author ~Nashoba Baleli~
How can you know, or understand, our loss
The rough-edged feel of poverty that came
to us in broken treaties' scourging hour?
Your skin is much too pale, or else too black
(Though white or colored skin is not the point).
You never lived with legend, ancient tales,
told many times around a hogan fire
While bitter winter sapped the very flames,
You never slept an infant's passive sleep
Bound in a cradleboard, handcarved and laced
The way the holy Ones taught us in days
Long past, beyond our furthest memory.
You never tended sheep in lambing time
Nor watched lambs frolic, stiff-kneed, in the rain.
You never knew serenity of life
In tune with nature's balanced give and take,
That total, greateful sense of solitude,
That prayer of thanks breathed out for hunter's skill,
A prayer which reaches silently to the
Great Source, as close in red rock canyons as
In rich and hallowed chapels made by men.
To you, tradition seems a binding thing,
But there are those of us who turn ourselves,
At least within our hearts, to that which was,
And was so handomely; reluctant still
To lay away such beauty and such peace,
As brotherhood beyond the clan or tribe,
That precious dignity in which a people walked
The pollen path, that timeless way,
So simple, so complex, so nearly gone.
Author ~Winifred Fields Walters~
Memory breaks
like a stream of geese
along the edge of sunset.
The river in the clouds
heavy on the children's eyes
cools the cedar sun.
The old men balance
their thin shadows
with smoke rings
that silence the gods.
Questions for dead brothers
disappear in the river
below the centuries-old bridge
like cast-away shields.
The heavy waterbaskets
the women dip into the river
fill the evening
with lost dances
to Thunderbird!
Seeing the ancestors' canoe
with ferns and Indian pipes
rooting from its past;
children call the guardian spirits
from the river forests.
Moccasins pound tribute.
The dancers cascade the vision
of their father's old defeats
by gods.
Author ~Duane W. McGinnis~
Indian Love Letter
Lady of the crescent moon
tonight I look at the sky
You are not there
You are not mad at me, are you?
"You are angry at the people,
Yes, I know."
they are changing
be not too hard
If you were taken to
the mission school
not because you wanted,
but someone thought it best for you
you too would change.
They came out of nowhere
telling us how to eat our food
how to build our homes
how to plant our crops.
Need I say more of what they did?
All is new--the old ways are nothing.
they are changing
be not too hard
I talk to them
they turn their heads.
Do not be hurt-- you have me
I live by the old ways
I will not change.
Tonight--my prayer plumes in hand
with the white shell things--
in the silent place I will go
(It is for you I go, please be there.)
Oh! Lady of the crescent moon
with the corn-silk hair--I love you
they are changing
be not too hard.
Author ~Soge Track~
I shall remember forever that I live
the shadows across the evening
orange lighting your cheeks
the softening and darkening of your eyes
as we leaned toward the promise
silent, the time screeching away
the violet hill having no horizon
time like the ripple on ripple
of leaves in a chorus
on the trees we loved
in the rhythm of our bodies
oh, our bodies dance
do you remember the dance
bending to music from our knees
the sunlit day long in shadows
already showing the last light
in the grass long and nodding.
Author ~Ramona Wilson~
Dear Mother Earth, and Great Eagle
in the sky, west wind and east wind.
Do you see all of the buffalo
carcasses strewn across the prairie?
Flapping wings of scavengers eating
peutrid meat which has been rotting
since hunters stripped the hides, hides
which keep our women and children warm,
meat that keeps our bellies full through
the long cold winter.
What shall we eat? What will warm our
bodies? Where shall we go. The white
man has taken our fertile land and
placed us on this barren, useless ground
with nothing but the wind to satisfy
our needs. All of the promises for seeds
and crops were only promises. All that
we have is another broken treaty and
continued illness and death as the winter
months set in.
What happened to our proud way of life
where our warriors were honored and respected,
the buffalo and deer were plentiful, hunting
was good and our women and children were warm
and full in their tepees, where we had hope
instead of dispair, respect for the great father
in Washington instead of hatred; where treaties
were honored, where Indian and white could live
together in harmony, and where the white man's
word would be truth.
All lost, all gone, as the white man pushes ever
westward. I beseech you Mother Earth to find a
way for our peoples to live through this winter
for if no help is coming we can only face death
as we meet the winter winds. Many would rather
journey to the happy hunting ground than live as
impoverished slaves to the white man and all of his
broken promises. We are slowly being ground into
dust and soon there will be nothing left as we are
carried away on the winds. We pray, Mother Earth!
Author ~Nashoba Baleli~
