I Can’t Remember

I can’t remember
skipping rocks on the beach
My childhoods forgotten
My childhoods lost.

Going to the doctor
Making mud cakes
Playing with friends in the street.

I can’t remember
All the bereavement
My childhoods forgotten
My childhoods lost.

The doctor doing surgery
Me getting pain pills
I can’t remember any of it
None of it’s clear.

I still can’t remember,
How it’s gone
My childhoods forgotten
My childhoods lost.


by Jamesha Willis

A WARRIOR IN CHAINS

WHEN

A WARRIOR'S

SPIRIT IS WHOLE AND STRONG

HE IS NOT AFRAID TO DIE

IT'S OF NO AVAIL

TO THREATEN A WARRIOR WITH DEATH

FOR DEATH HAS LITTLE MEANING

TO LIVE

A WARRIOR NEEDS

FREEDOM

FOR IT IS THE INDIAN WAY

TO ENDURE

A WARRIOR NEEDS

THE RIGHT

TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

A WARRIOR TAKES

CONSOLE IN THE

SACRED PIPE

FOR IT IS HIS RELIGION

LIKE A DIEING POOL

OF WATER

A WARRIOR BECOMES STAGNANT

WITHOUT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

FOR IT IS

THE

INDIAN WAY

A WARRIOR PERISHES SILENTLY

ALONE

FOR HIS PEOPLE CANNOT

HEAR HIS WORDS

WITHOUT THE FREEDOM

OF COMMUNICATION

IN PRISON THERE ARE

FEW

HUMAN RIGHTS

MY BED HAS BEEN A CONCRETE

FLOOR

MY BLANKET HAS BEEN MY

OWN BLOOD

I SURVIVE

WHILE THOSE THAT

ABUSE ME ARE

HONORED

BUT I AM NOURISHED BY

THE GREAT SPIRIT

EVER TRUE AND UNWAVERING

I DO NOT FEEL LOST

I AM NOT ALONE AND WEAK

MY PRINCIPLES REMAIN

STEADFAST

MY BELIEFS REMAIN THE

INDIAN WAY

by Bobby Garcia

Dalai Lama - The Nobler Truths of Life

The Dalai Lama continues to laugh
addressing
a large audience.

The interpreter is super-serious
has no time for laughter
The English was like a net
the Tibetan words butterflies,
flew from the flower-petal lips of the Dalai Lama
sometimes to sit on the ears of the Tibetan kids
sometimes on the gold-flecked robes,
maybe the wedding dresses
of the Tibetan women
taken out only on special occasions
but worn away at the hems
this bit of sparkle left
like the trace of light  in aged eyes.

The Dalai Lama was expounding
the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism
He raised his arm and
like three little dots of ‘therefore’
there were the marks of childhood vaccination
peeping through his ochre robe.
They whispered:
   Aha, someone is talking about such high principles
            but is from this very world
            this very epoch
            and he’s just a  man.

Right in front of me, rapt, a grandfather
on his shoulder  a chubby little boy and his gurgling bottle
wiping his running nose
on grandpa’s sweater —
He must have been like that  —
the Dalai Lama
What do we know of Tibet  —
Rahul Sanknityayan or Rinpoches
monasteries and chow mein
cheap sweaters and sandals, China,
snow, lost eyes, round faces and faithful Lhasa Apso pups.

How do those noble truths
connect with
such random bits,
the ignoble truths of life?

Does truth too have hierarchies?
A caste system?  —
Brahmin truths at the top
and then the Shudra  truths at the bottom?

Hunger and
thirst
heat and cold
attachment and cruelties
Love and hate  —
are these truths really lower?

Dalai Lama, you tell me, please:
if the truth is like these mountain ranges —
high and low.
I prefer living in the deep cave of a small truth
occasionally coming to you
to learn the nobler truths of life.

Cynthia Leigh Waters

Child

Yearns

Never-never Land

Touches

Hurt

Instant Love

All Mine

Loving and Lovable

Emotional

Intricate

God’s Child

Hard Life

Wondrous

Admirable

Trusting

Eclectic

Romantic

Sunny

You were my joy and my life,

My everything, my all

You were an answer to prayer

I loved you so much

I had to give you away

You weren’t a toy

I would have broken you

You were my sunshine

After you were gone

I lived in perpetual darkness.

I became an underground animal

Never seeking the sun

You are my sun

by Betty Phillips

Paw Prints from Heaven

Though you can't see me, I am always around...
Though you can't hear me, I am speaking to you...
Though you can't touch me, I am reaching for you...
The images you see, but cannot explain...
The energy you feel, but cannot see...
The love that you feel, when thinking of me...
My presence you feel, when walking outside...
My hugs remembered, never let go...
My heart that I gave you, that you now wear...
The things you are seeing, that no one can explain...
And the things that you hear, with no one around...
These gifts that I give you, are my Paw Prints from Heaven.

- Romeo

Hope

Hoping for peace on Earth;
Wishing upon shooting stars;
Taking chances to make things right;
Helping others, and listening well;
Making problems disappear;
Giving heart in all we do;
To give love, and never take;
Will give us hope; and one day peace.

by Abegail Samson

Lullaby Across the Plains

Fears ensnared within the winter drifts along the harden ground
One lone ember stares off yearning for heaven brothers 
As I watch its simple battle for survival from dust of ashes gray
To tombs that lie stone in forever twilight slumbers

In my sleepy hollow head like a saddened tune on flute play
I hear further, farther days ahead and think them some great enemy
But, louder are the years which shall follow as if it’s greater dread
So I return to thoughts outward of the plains lullaby instead

Outside the winds lost are moaning singing a sacred song
Warning, crawling like shadows long, carry astral visions rolling in
Caught like prey dancing in the trees by guardian dream catchers
Shamans of the din, their medicine cleansing, sweeping away village sin

The ember grows brighter as I feel the warmth on my Ojibwe people all around
Sounds of the old man elder still breathing, rhythms of the ceremonial drum
Hearst beating over silence of the coming whites waiting to steal away the clouds
And their cold tracks of steel lying like death dividing up the rivers run

Still I listen, to the plains that speak in nightless lullabies
So the cricket’s lie dormant the buffalo’s wintry song is a bolder snore
Like clouds upon the desert floor, beneath the watchful eye of the snowy goddess moon
Ghosts of warriors galloping across the plains looking for their home

So, I call out whispers to them “here we are” adding to the Algonquin tune
Smiling with eyes closing, I watch the ember stronger glowing hearth
Empowered by life, the gift of the Great Spirit, mountain coyote serenading love of light
And mother lays her hand across the plains tucking in all her children of this Earth

With this I sleep sounder for awhile longer
Although, knowing all things must end with death
But, the spirit will live on and on
Across the plains in its lullabying song, like the winter's breath

by Micheal Smith 

"Nunna Dual Tsuny"

wild roses now grow
as living epitaphs on
"the trail where they cried"

by Deborah Burch

THE LAST STAND

Where have all my people gone, the Navaho, Lakota, and the Sue.
Smothered beneath the white man blanket,
Chocking for a breath of airs life's sustaining oxygen.
The beating heart of native drums, are stilled frozen,
In the middle of it's rhythmic thumping, no pulses echo,
Can be heard on the open plain.
The weeping women kneel on sacred ground, shedding
A river of bloods tears, burning a permanent scare across,
A baron landscape.
Death's black raven shields itself, under it's crimson soaked wing,
Against shames immoral injustice. 
Greed's unsatisfiable hunger for land and riches fuels lusts desire,
Behold exterminations nay holocaust of the native inhabitance,
  Nothing remains alive except ignorance blackened shadow.
How much blood can mother earth be forced to drink before,
She drowns herself or spits up everything undigested,
 With sheer disdain and hatreds malice intent.
On a black and white chess board the winners takes it all,
Strategies grand masters playing with living pawns.
Treaties written in vanishing ink, promises disappear in thin air,
 Revealing a liars sharpened tongue.
The odds have always been stacked against those believing in fairness.
A rogue tidal wave of humanity has wiped out a nation,
And it's culture within the blink of an eye.
Flights appendages are clipped on the dove of peace, leaving it
Unable to soar above it's own habitat.
Wreckage’s refugees stumble in the ruins after math,
Rapes victims of civilizations civilized,
Are left devoid of their heritages lineage and legacy.
Elders chieftains representatives of a great nation,
Smoke peace pipes in the white mans hunting lodge
In Washington.
As human beings are hauled like cattle's cargo,
Taken to reservations burial grounds. 
Ancient ancestors lit up the heaven's vast expanse,
 By torches flame,
To guide the souls of the dead unto their great spiritual
 Plain beyond.
The pale horse gallops forward without a rider,
And the red people become a phantom tribe vanishing
 Upon the winds shifting tides.
Giving one last final trible battle war cry, 
Why my father but the great spirit answers not.
Behold America's legacy, a world trampled beneath
It's heavy iron fist, all in the name of progress or for the cause
Of Manifest destiny.

BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN

The Wisdom of Russell Means - Final Interview

"One is expected to know things, to believe things.  Knowing and believing are all in your head - there is nothing in your heart.  If you cannot feel that the earth is your grandmother, then of course you will find it easy to rape her, to behave as if she is under your dominion.  You will find it easy to believe that we humans are the dominant species, and to act as though the earth and everything on it are ours to do with as we please.  ... if all human beings were taken away, life on earth would flourish."


"We Indians do not teach that there is only one god.  We know that everything has power, including the most inanimate, inconsequential things.  Stones have power.  A blade of grass has power.  Trees and clouds and all our relatives in the insect and animal world have power.  We believe we must respect that power by acknowledging it's presence.  By honoring the power of the spirits in that way, it becomes our power as well.  It protects us."


" They don't understand that a slice of the pie isn't the whole pie - but they wonder why they are always hungry."


" If you learn from an experience, that's good - so nothing bad happened to you."


" All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused, and this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, the whole environment will retaliate, and the abusers will be eliminated. Things come full circle, back to where they started. That's revolution."

The Wisdom of A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"To her-
Hand in hand we come
Christopher Robin and I
To lay this book in your lap.
Say you're surprised?
Say you like it?
Say it's just what you wanted?
Because it's yours-
because we love you."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

A.A. Milne    
"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you."
— A.A. Milne

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
— A.A. Milne
   
"So - here I am in the dark alone,
There's nobody here to see;
I think to myself,
I play to myself,
And nobody knows what I say to myself;
Here I am in the dark alone,
What is it going to be?
I can think whatever I like to think,
I can play whatever I like to play,
I can laugh whatever I like to laugh,
There's nobody here but me."
— A.A. Milne (Now We Are Six)

"Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them."
— A.A. Milne

"You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)


A.A. Milne    
"On Wednesday, when the sky is blue,
and I have nothing else to do,
I sometimes wonder if it's true
That who is what and what is who."
- Winnie-the-Pooh"
— A.A. Milne

"Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."
— A.A. Milne

"How do you spell 'love'?" - Piglet
"You don't spell it...you feel it." - Pooh"
— A.A. Milne

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

A.A. Milne    
"What day is it?"
It's today," squeaked Piglet.
My favorite day," said Pooh."
— A.A. Milne

"I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

A.A. Milne    
"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."
— A.A. Milne

A.A. Milne    
"Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

A.A. Milne    
"If there ever comes a day when we can't be together, keep me in your heart. I'll stay there forever."
— A.A. Milne

"Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"We'll be friends until forever, just you wait and see"
— A.A. Milne
    
"TTFN Ta Ta For Now!"
— A.A. Milne

"And by and by Christopher Robin came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop."
— A.A. Milne (The House at Pooh Corner)

"On Tuesday, when it hails and snows,
The feeling on me grows and grows
That hardly anybody knows
If those are these or these are those."
— A.A. Milne