Category Archives: First Nations

Sitting Bull’s Tears

S Bull

 

(On Seeing Sitting Bull’s War Shirt at the Royal Ontario Museum)

 

They were in a glass case, with labels and maps,

his moccassins, his headdress, some old photographs,

but center of all his sacred war shirt

worn into battle that hot day in June,

when the steady wind whispered with American lead,

as he fought for the weak, the mighty brought low

a great peoples leader, the great Sitting Bull,

now a footnote to history, on display in a case,

his shirt now a trophy, for tourists and kids,

and in cold black and white, it seemed from the light,

that his eyes glowed from tears he bled every night,

so far from his people, so far from his land,

a Toronto amusement, a museum his tomb.

 

 

 

A Petal Fallen

 

Dedicated to Cheyenne Fox,

(One of the many First Nations women of Canada
who are murdered and missing)

vigil-cheyenne fox

One more petal sadly fell,
From the flower of Ojibwe youth,
And all the skies wept warm tears,
When they took her from that place
Where no one cared, and no one asked,
Who this fair girl once was,
For then the world would sink in shame,
To know the bitter truth.

She was of the People,
Who lived when heroes lived,
Before They came from distant seas,
Who came and never left,

She was of the People,
Who none to men were slaves,
The day she died, alone and cold,
In their cold city, by the lake.

Too many fallen petals,
When one will bring a tear,
Too many things unanswered,
When it’s answers that They fear,
For we’re tired of parliamentary lies,
And we’re tired of foreign laws,
So, let us live, and let us be
The People when first you came,
So give us justice, and give us peace,
And the answers that we claim,
For remember, we are warriors,
And warriors of great fame.