Faraway But Not Forgotten

Faraway But Not Forgotten

Waves lap the beach
in endless cadence
even now,
ascending the beach
falling back.
Leaving the sand glistening
under sun and star.

Cold water on your feet
its gripping froth and pulsing splash
How could the world so timeless
change so fast?

Wrenched
from your lifelong home,
on Gichi agaaming.
.

The coolness of nibi
on your ankles
in your mind,
in your heart,

just yesterday

Stiff shoes,
cut hair, silenced words,
And fear

today

faraway from home.

This is a poem about how it may have been like for any imprisoned youth from Lake Superior country suddenly swept into the boarding school system. As a non-Native, I don't presume to intimately know their pain. It is only as a human being I know the inspiration Gichi agaaming provides in such short meeting when one is open to its earthly presence.

Comments

Joe - Wednesday's Child said…

Mark Turcotte was raised on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation, and he has this poem about his experience as a child...

Flies Buzzing
By Mark Turcotte

somewhere in america, in a certain state of grace . . .
Patti Smith

As a child I danced
to the heartful, savage
rhythm
of the Native, the
American Indian,
in the Turtle Mountains,
in the Round Hall,
in the greasy light of
kerosene lamps.

As a child I danced
among the long, jangle legs of
the men, down
beside the whispering moccasin women,
in close circles
around the Old Ones,
who sat at the drum,
their heads tossed, backs arched
in ancient prayer.

As a child I danced away from the fist,
I danced toward the rhythms of life,
I danced into dreams, into
the sound of flies buzzing.
A deer advancing but clinging to the forest wall,
the old red woman rocking in her tattered shawl,
the young women bent, breasts
drooping to the mouths of their young, the heat
hanging heavy on the tips of our tongues,
until the Sun
burned the sky black, the moon
made us silvery blue and
all of the night sounds, all of the night sounds

folded together with the buzzing
still in our heads,
becoming a chant of ghosts,
of Crazy Horse and Wovoka
and all the Endless Others,
snaking through the weaving through the trees
like beams of ribbons of light,
singing, we shall live again we shall live,

until the Sun and the Sun and the Sun and I
awaken,
still a child, still dancing
toward the rhythm of life.

July 8, 2021 at 6:55 AM

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