The White Man’s Land

It is everywhere.

The four corners of the Plains,

given to us by our ancestor’s,

generations long before

pale skin of the blue eyes

with the white lies,

and cold blood

running from an even colder heart,

came,

as they slaughtered my people.

Forced away from sacred lands,

hunting grounds that once ran rampant

with mighty Buffalo,

now,

when you stare outward;

metal machines run havoc across pathways.

And we are slowly becoming nowhere.

Oh, today, we have tribal lands,

villages, the government say we own.

This government would say I speak falsely,

but I speak truths given me

by the Father’s long since dead,

in stories my father once told me.

Yes, we are slowly going nowhere.

Where once, a great continent,

was truly nothing more than space,

where all people’s lived their way,

with space to move freely,

to hunt, raise family;

teach our children the Indian Way.

When the long-hair, Custer, fell,

on that day so did our freedom.

When Sitting Bull was killed,

when all the chiefs of the great tribes

were washed away by soldier’s guns;

when all my ancestors

were herded like stray Buffalo,

it was then, we ended up nowhere.

But we do have our tracts of land,

We do have our gambling casinos,

We do have our own laws to enforce,

We do have our own sovereignty of life;

And we still hold onto our dignity,

our pride,

and cling to the histories of our people.

Those are things

the white man’s government

has never taken from us,

has never defeated.

The blood of many bloods

have flooded streams, rivers;

soaked dirt to rust color

and our word,

has carried far and wide,

with the Spirit of Winds,

that will never die.

We have fought

alongside many, many white-eyes;

some who wished for destruction

of other white’s,

and for those like us,

wanted only peace.

History tells my people,

both have lied,

for we are without our rightful place,

in what is called history books.

From the Crow to the Delaware,

Seneca, Iroquois, Apache, Ute,

Algonquin, Sioux, Cheyenne,

Piute, Huron, Wyandot, Navajo,

Black Feet, Comanche, Seminoles;

to all tribes, all brothers,

all races of my people,

and of those who are no more,

to those who still cling to the old ways,

in prayer, in hope,

to one day have back what was taken from us,

torn away and raped by this thing we call:

Government.

This thing a piece of paper,

a treaty calls: Promise.

The only truth is the promise found

in the spirit of our Father’s,

and the ghosts of all Father’s past,

and in the spirit of Father Life, Mother Earth,

and the ghosts of our history

travelling in our dreams.

Yes, the white man’s land is everywhere.

But, so too, are we.