Lakota Blessing

Native American Heritage Month

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Connected

Native American Heritage Month

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Grasshopper

By Pen

blade of grass
new roots in earth’s soil
home to grasshopper

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Native American Heritage Month

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Return Me

By Pen

 

Traipsing through sacred mountain woods,

the legend of an Indian brave follows me,

whispered, repeated in mountain laurel leaves;

long before white man swept this land bone-dry,

left it pleading for mercy beneath a merciless sky,

a red-skinned warrior walked these hills,

strode proud, mastering inherited tribal skills

the light-skinned tribe will never know or understand.

His rituals come easy, his lessons well-honed,

he knows the cry of every bird, the pulse of every stone;

his mother earth awake, alive around him,

she holds him close and surrounds him

with the comfort of her leaves for cover,

the watchful eye of the moon his lover.

 

He gave the wind a name, unspoken among his own,

a name lost among his people, and to mine forever unknown.

We used his words to name our towns,

built our roads upon the pathways he traveled down

and in our haste to become civilized,

we murdered and buried a civilization

at one with the earth and heavens,

we sell his image on cigarette lighters and playing cards,

a subject of political lamentations,

while he subsists, relegated to a reservation

his pale-skinned tormentors set aside just for him;

and we called it progress in the process

as we left them all to lay

dying without pride or dignity;

we, the civilized, have yet to realize

the truth:  we are more savage than they.

 

His footfalls leave no echo, no trace

of his existence within this place

or time; yet I know he was once here,

an occupant of this land,

a member of these mountain woods

which speak to me so openly

of travels past and a history

uncaptured upon pages in a book,

locked forever, a secret, among these

willowy branches, sung by the babbling brook

from which an Indian warrior once slaked his thirst;

here no more, he was here first.

And I can only follow with a life so hollow

its purpose scatters like leaves in a nameless wind,

besieged by memories of a history past

I scorn the present in a litany of cries –

that Indian brave warrior once was I.

 

Oh, Spirit Guides, return me.

Return me to this sacred place,

a feathered headdress around my face,

and eyes that surmise the beauty

that you so graciously offered me –

nothing taken without a giving back –

nothing taken without a prayer of gratitude

for filling my hunger, quenching my thirst,

the very cloth laid upon my back.

Spirit Guides return me,

from where I stand to where I’ve been,

to witness again what I have seen;

to hear the cry of the crow,

and listen to the thunder of the buffalo

stampeding across the plain,

out of sight, to never be hunted again;

 

Spirit Guides, to my lips bear the water,

to my hands bear the labor;

upon my body paint the blood of the slaughter

of my brethren, my tribe, my earth,

avenge the rape of my daughters

and I will fight, the proud warrior I am.

 

Return me.

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Indian Gold (The Treasure of Chief Sawnee)

By Pen

My journey led me to this place,

a search for fortune and glory,

spurred by imagination

from an Indian legend story.

It was said a great Indian chief

buried his treasure within this mountain

overlooking this north Georgia town.

Within this mountain named after him

great riches were to be found.

 

And so my search began with but a single clue,

passed down through generations,

keeping the legend strong,

the only instructions on what to do:

“the sun rises upon it, the sun sets upon it,

and the sun shines upon it all day long.”

 

The locals whispered that ‘it’ was gold

and, oh, how those locals told and retold

the story of the Indians’ plunder,

of riches, enough to put any man asunder

and the eyes of the locals sparkled with glee

and their faces sweated with greed

and their voices grew hoarse with the storytelling.

 

And I, no better than they, sought out that Indian gold,

treasures in my hand to hold

and the riches of my wildest dreams.

I found myself wading cold mountain streams,

and hiding from wild creatures roaming the night

but no fear had I, sleeping beneath the moonlight,

for I would be rich with the Indian chief’s bounty.

 

Standing atop the mountain in the early morning mist,

Standing in bush and bramble kissed

with a chill morning dew,

I looked about me as the sun broke through.

A vision appeared to me as I looked down

where the town should be at the mountain’s feet

upon this morning there was no town.

The sun glinted off clear mountain streams

like diamonds; the sea of trees swaying in the breeze

were of the richest emerald green,

the blaze of the sapphire skies hurt my eyes

as I watched the flight of an eagle.

With the rising sun, truth dawned upon me:

the Indians did not value gold, no silver did they seek,

they valued the soil beneath their feet,

where they grew the food they needed to eat,

they valued the trees which provided their shelter

and offered them shade from the sweltering sun

and clean water from those mountain streams

beside which they slept and dreamed.

Their treasures were what they made:

vases from the red Georgia clay,

beads and feathers to grace their faces

or to use in trade for food or tools or even weapons

to use against the white man’s purging of their race.

 

The raw smell of the earth filled my lungs to bursting,

the cry of the eagle matched the pounding

of my heartbeat within my ears

and I could hear my own voice rising as I spoke,

“I sought the Indian’s treasure and I have found it,

I am rich! I am rich! I am rich!”

 

The vision left me then, flew apart

like leaves dancing in the wind, a wind

which whispered to my heart:

“Indian gold cannot be held in the hand,

it must be treasured within the heart.”

 

That is why white man will never find it.

©2005 Pen

Years ago when I worked at the Forsyth County News, we once ran a story about a man in the county who had spent most of his adult life searching for Chief Sawnee’s treasure, allegedly buried within Sawnee Mountain. He was not the only one: many people in that area searched for that treasure. The clues in this poem are the clues passed down to find that treasure: “the sun rises upon it, the sun sets upon it and the sun shines upon it all day long.” What no one realized is that these clues are actually a riddle. Chief Sawnee’s treasure is all around. One need simply to open one’s eyes.

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Those who conte…

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

— Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

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