They came into the land
They came across the water
Or so we were told
They came from thin air
They stood by the river and streams
And pour did they their waste
From their bowels and pails
Into the waters that the day sun
Uses to replenish the sky
From which the great bear
And the smallest of our kin drink
They put a bounty on our elders
They paid a bounty for the hair
And the ears of our mother’s sons
The bravest of the heroes from their
War of the two houses divided
Over the ownership of woman and man
Galloped into the camp of the elders
And those that watched over our lives
And took life from our women and children
In the name of God they did these
But not by God’s hand were these done
By the hand of greed and the hand of lies
There is but one God and all are that One
The one whose hand dropped down
And the one whose life ran away
The one that was no more, now gray smoke
And the one that now cries when he prays
The living must forgive and remember
The dead must move on into our dreams
But the earth, the mother of the slain
And the mother of the living, remembers
She is a women denied a child by a child
She is torn between love and pain
As she morns one and hopes for another
Her tears are polluted with the waste
From the bowels and from the pails
Cry for her and cry for the child that remains
Pray for her and pray for the child that remains

© 1997 Tim D. Coulter Sr.