Poems, Thoughts and Meaningful Words of Wisdom
Untitled
I am the Indian voice,I long to be heard across our land. I have been a prisoner of war for more than two hundred years on my very own soil!
I am a captive of hate, greed, lies, prejudice, indifference, ignorance, injustice, by men who outnumber me and my people since they have landed on my shores and have overrun my home land.
They have wrought on me their society, their religion, and their laws, all of which have caused the number of my people to become less today than when he first came with his false promises to our shores.
I am the collective Indian Voice
and I cry out from a million graves of unresting, resting souls and another million cries that ask the question: where does my future belong and to whom: Does it belong to my people?
Is it to prosper on the land that is rightfully mine? Yes, it does and it shall, for my voice shall not be stilled nor my spirit stopped from soaring to the heights of greatness which my people have known and shall know again.
I am the Indian Voice. I shall be heard and my people shall see the coming of a new day.
The Mother Earth provides and the Great Spirit guides so that truth is known from shore to shore by the voice of a proud Indian Race.
By Leonard Peltier
THE HEART'S FRIEND
FAIR is the white star of twilight, and the sky clearer at the day's end;
But she is fairer, and she is dearer.
She, my heart's friend!
Far stars and fair in the skies bending,
Low stars of hearth fires and wood smoke ascending,
The meadow-lark's nested,
The night hawk is winging;
Home through the star-shine the hunter comes singing.
Fair is the white star of twilight,
And the moon roving
To the sky's end;
But she is fairer, better worth loving,
She, my heart's friend.
Shoshone Love Song
Wounded Spirits
Oh, you of wounded Spirits...I offer you a place of rest...Walk among my mountains...and climb to Eagle's nest..Come swim amid my oceans...or feel my deserts's fire...sit beside running waters to reclaim your Heart's desire.
Seek my silent forests..or walk my open plains...travel the deepest jungles..till you hear my Love's refrain.
I am always waiting to allow each Child to heal...to cradle the wounded Spirits...and teach them how to feel.
I am the Earth Mother, who Loves without regret.....Tending all my..... Children..who through tears..have paid all debts.
By Jamie Sams
QUIET YOU SAY
It came quietly
like the stir of a breeze
the floating of a lost down feather
the way the sun slips over the edge of the
dawn
The change
the shift
like the quiet minute on a clock
But the change was not quiet
it resounded
Wounded Knee
Alcatraz
Pt.Conception
Resounded with names
Banks
Means
Peltier
Butler
Bellacourt
Trudell
so many
Strong Men
Strong Women
Strong Voices
And the change was heard
Quiet you say
twenty years later
Quiet
it's the change
the shift
Listen for it
In the North
In the East
In the South
In the West
Hear it in the voices
of the Children
of the Old Ones
Protecting the Ancestors
Protecting the Future
Quietly
like the stir of a breeze
the floating of a lost down feather
the way the sun slips over the edge of the
dawn
The change
the shift
like the quiet minute on a clock
The clock ticks away
and change is with us
The old Indian teaching was that it is wrong to tear loose from its place on the earth anything that may be growing there.
It may be cut off, but it should not be uprooted. The trees and the grass have spirits.
Whatever one of such growth may be destroyed by some good Indian, his act is done in sadness and with a prayer for forgiveness because of his necessities...
Wooden Leg
Cheyenne
Reflections Of The Sky Nation
The Thunder-beings were busy giving birth to new clouds, sending them to dance in the blue playground of sky. Grandfather Sun provided the glittering sunbeams, which acted like jump ropes for today's newborn white, puffy Cloud People.
One of the most curious little clouds wandered off on the winds. She decided she was going to have a talk with Sacred Mountain. "Grandmother Mountain, I've come to ask you if your forests need rain today," she said. "I want to be of service, and so I thought I had better find out what is needed most."
Sacred Mountain told the little cloud that there was plenty of moisture today, but the little one could help in another way.
Sacred Mountain taught the little cloud how to understand the thoughts and questions that the human beings were having. It was fun for the little cloud to capture the waves of human thoughts rising from the Earth and to answer the humans' unspoken questions by becoming shapes that formed a series of ideas. The needed answers were found through the linking ideas.
The little cloud approached Sacred Mountain at the end of the day with another question that caused Cloud to have a heavy heart, "Grandmother Mountain, I've worked all day to reflect helpful answers to the Human Tribe, but now I have one very important question. How can we get them to look up and pay attention?
By Jamie Sams
Rolling Thunder
Sometimes I feel so sad
When I remember
My Indian Relations killed
Like falling timber.
Sometimes I stand alone.
Sometimes I wonder
When will justice come
Like rolling thunder.
Rolling thunder! Rolling thunder!
Roll me along.
Can't speak the Language.
Can't burn the Sage.
Can't dance the dances.
Can't Pray in the Medicine way.
Kidnapped the Children.
Dragged from their homes
Took the Parents
To a jail made of stone.
Can't smoke the Sacred Pipe.
Can't raise the Flag.
Can't carry Feathers.
Can't wear the Medicine Bag.
Rolling thunder! Rolling thunder!
Roll me along.
I saw it in the Black Hills
At Wounded Knee.
The Mothers and Children
Who died for all to see.
Bulldozers roamed the plains
Tore down the Teepees
Ripped out the Mother's Heart
Children were weeping!
Rolling thunder! Rolling thunder!
Roll me along.
The trail of broken treaties
Is a trail of tears.
The road's so painful these
Five hundred years.
The Eagle's flying
High above the clouds
Thunder cries
We did not die in vain.
Rolling thunder! Rolling thunder!
Roll me along.
Crazy Horse is rising
Thunder on the plains
Lightening flashes
Down justice rains.
Crazy Horse is rising
Thunder on the plains
Lightening flashes and
Down justice rains.
The Message
Silence they say is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act.
Let who you are ring out and resonate in every word and every deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There's no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility.
What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppence.
You become your own message.
You are the message.
By Leonard Peltier
Earth Medicine
To lift my heart in praise,
Filling my spirit with gladness
For blessings of the Beauty Way.
You have taught me how to sing,
How to rejoice, dance, and drum,
And how to sing my gratitude
For the abundance that will come.
You have shown me the magic of
A change in mind and heart,
An attitude made of wisdom
That celebration of life imparts.
I sing the truth of thankfulness
When I greet Grandfather Sun,
Then send my love to Mother Earth
For the life force that makes us one.
By Jamie Sams
When a man does a piece of work which is admired by all we say that it is wonderful;
but when we see the changes of day and night, the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky, and the changing seasons upon the earth, with their ripening fruits,
anyone must realize that it is the work of someone more powerful than man.
Chased-by-Bears
Santee-Sioux
The Earth is the Mother of all People, and all People should have equal rights upon it.
You might as well expect the river to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
A JOURNEY'S END AT WOUNDED KNEE
The wind blows softly through the grass,
Of yellow, brown and gold.
They sway in
Tribute for those lost,
Their mournful stories unfold.
The path that leads up to the hill,
Where buried families lay.
Echoes the sounds of horses hoofs,
The ground feels to this day.
The graves-------all still------and yet-----there's sound,
Of voices through the air.
Those cries you hear------they're not the wind,
Souls asking you to care.
You stand there-------still------as voices cry,
The tears begin to flow.
You feel their pain and sorrow deep,
Great Mystery's name------you call.
The Eagles cry from Sacred Sites,
Their screams heard far and wide.
" Do not forget-------what happened here!"
Lest history tries to hide.
The heart connects with Spirits deep,
To join them in their Prayer.
They plead to mend the Circle now,
All Nations -----hands joined-----to care.
The Prayer Ties wave with gentle winds,
To join the swaying grass.
All Earth responds with Prayers of hope,
For Peaceful Souls at last..
Mitakuye Oyasin
Copyright Oct 30,1998
ErthAvengr
Indian Love Poem
Dedicated to my Love
Man does not measure the Stars
It is a Gift
He cannot count
So it is with my Love for you
How can I tell you of my Love?
Strong as the Eagle, soft as the Dove,
Patient as the Pine Tree that stands in the Sun
and whispers to the Wind...
"You are the one!"
Author: Unknown
From the mountains I draw the Wisdom of the Elders,
From the wind I draw my courage,
From the River I draw Persistence,
From the Fire I draw My Souls Power,
For I am Indian.
"Since the beginning, Native People lived a life of being in Harmony with all that surrounds us..."
Dennis J. Banks-- 1984
The Invitation
My Prayer
Silenced Hearts
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