Oppressed

[echo of a Native American Indian]

Oh ye of cold, deceiving tongue
purloiner of my peoples pride,
you crushed the fabric of our world
until we lived
as you decreed.
Scattered, blown to barren lands
battered by your winds of change
incarcerated and condemned for crimes of inconvenience.

As arrows
hearts were broken,
desire emerged in ghostly dance
to resurrect the life we’d known,
restore our tribal legacies.
Still, snake tongue did not leave us,
desolation took its toll,
inflicted wounds became too deep
scars that time can never heal,
but though repressed

“we shall not yield!"

Those winds of change will fan the flames that flicker hope within.
Desire for reparation
will burn through age from loin to seed.
A simmering intensity
that can only ever be
doused by native liberty and freedom of the plains.

[ The elders have been summoned and the wisdom they bestow ]

“Cast aside historic chains,
grasp and steer the guiding reins
then venture out on to the plains and ride,
ride,
not from the trespassing foe,
but once more with
the buffalo.”