thehighlanderspoems

Lakota

 

I'm very small
I am called Standing Tall
My story to be read as I live through it all

 

Our Dakota lands are forest and vast 
Where our ancestors have hunted
From long in the past

 

Our tribes are, a confederation of seven
With our language of Lakota, Sioux heaven
We stand proud as we remember our past
And look to our gods to make it all last

 

A silhouette on the prairie hill I see
This shape in the distance is new to me
As we sleep in the night, we hear guns and blows
We arise from our camp, to look for the noise
We creep on the prairie to their surprise
Under the moon, where the land would flow
No longer the Buffalo

 

We mount our ponies to challenge these men
What gives them this right to kill and maim
Bodies of beasts, furs cut away
Missing heads, a ghastly slay

 

On reaching their camp our bows stretched
Arrows screech, hitting the wretched
Watching them fall to the prairie floor
Just like the Buffalo did hours before

 

Years have passed as we are moved from our lands 
These poisonous men and their poisonous glands
Bringing illness fever and strife
Ending many a Lakota life

 

We reach a point in History
Which made the white man sit up and see
Their Golden Child,  General George Custer
And the Little Big Horn, my what a disaster

 

Arapaho, Cheyenne and us Lakota too
Sliced the Blue Jackets, their Scouts too
The US Cavalry would have their glee
At the Battle of Wounded Knee
Where Sitting Bull would finally rest
Standing Tall's story last's the test
If we Indians had the same resources
Like the silhouette on the hill
These prairies we always had. would be ours still


 

For Kachi Nita - Choctaw Girl
 
The Choctaw Indians
From the southern states
This Muskogean group
Like others, their future waits
 
The American Revolution
Supporting the thirteen states
But history would tell them
As they learned their fate
 
They were the first Native Americans
To march The Trail of Tears
A supportive tribe
Now living modern fears
 
To Oklahoma exiled
For the US to expand
To save them from extinction
The want of their land
 
Ratification of 
1831
The Treaty of Dancing Creek
And their politics began
 
The Choctaw who stayed
In newly formed Mississippi State
The first to become citizens
On America's plate
 
The humanity of this tribe
Echoed so loud
The Great Irish Famine
Serving these Irish proud
 
History has noted
The pride in their race
Always willing to serve
No matter the place
 
In World War 1
They exceeded and rode
The Choctaw language
In Military code
 
For Kichi Nita
And, Ima Chi Ona
Two Choctaw ladies
Off awesome persona
 
They carry their past
Like the wind and the eagle
A tribe of true America
The Choctaw People

 

Gift for Gentle Deer


Cherokee warrior i am

First son of the chief
Named, Bright Cloud

After my ancestors belief
 
Bride i must choose
For my sons to be born
Ceremonial dress
Tee-pee adorned
 
My gift to my wife
A beast so grand

Lipizzaner so white
Standing 15 hands
 
On the day of our wedding
Ohio River so blue

Our ancestors above
Look down on us, two
 
Warriors and families
Surround our souls
As we are joined together
Like a mare and her foal
 
Ceremony ends
To our Tee-pee we go
Ancestral chants
In the background slows
 
Through the night as we dream
As our spirits flow
As i wake in the morning
Our life starts to grow
 
Years pass
For this Deer and her Cloud
Three sons she has bore
Standing tall and so proud
 
 
     < for Gentle Deer >

 

Mass Execution
 
The Dakota Wars
Took their toll
Native Indians
Out of control
 
Five settlers were killed
Is what started it all
Little Crow declared
More would fall
 
This all happened
Many years ago
As the history books
And the records show
 
August 16th
1862
Treaty payments arrived
Truly due
 
But the fighting had started
Like i stated above
Settlers and Indians
There was rarely love

 
August 18th
1862
Little Crow on the warpath
Tensions grew
 
The Battle of Redwood Ferry
24 soldiers killed
Dakota war parties continued
How could relations build
 
At the battle of Wood Lake
1862
The Dakota surrendered
269, quite a crew
 
In Mid December
The trials were set
330 convicted
Their fate to be met
 
Lincoln commuted
Most of the above
Leaving 39
For the deathly shove
 
One was reprieved
Leaving 38
Confirming
Execution date
 
December 26th
1862
In Mankato, Minnesota
The 38 flew
 
To be with their ancestors
Fly on the wind
Chant with their spirits
In plea to rescind
 
The above date
Histories numeration
Is written as America's
Largest mass execution 
 
9/11
And the Civil War
Two tragic tolls
Above the Dakota Wars

 

Dreamcatchers

Spiritual winds,
Good dreams filter, sleeper sleeps;
Web catches the bad,
 



 

 

Last of the Mahican

Eastern Algonquian 
Native American tribe
An Indian of Indians
As history scribes
 
This Muhhekunneuw
People of the river
In the tribes around them
In terror shiver
 
Hudson river warriors
Another tribe chased from their homes
Hounded by horrors
Government clones
 
A few hundred years later
Its really hard to believe
This warrior tribes
Language in cease
 
To die with the others
Its their history that's lost
No intelligence to preserve it
Not the white man's cost
 
Wisconsin settled
With the Munsee
In 200 years time
They'll be here, you'll see
 

 

Oliver O. Howard The Christian General 


Respect in uniform
A man with respect
Major Oliver O. Howard
One of the US Armies best

 
A courageous soldier
With an order to follow
Dis-quell the Indian Wars
So there be peace tomorrow
 
Born in Maine
His dad died when he was nine
But this little boy

Turned out oh so fine
 
At nineteen, he graduated
A young man, already well rated
1854 Military pass
This bright young man, 4th in his class
 
Time advances to the Indian Wars
To do his duties, soldier sworn
To quell the fighting, peace be ours
Chief Joseph and the Indian colors
 
His task achieved, tho Indian losses
Orders he served, from Washington's bosses
Chief Joseph, from his lands he was moved
To Oklahoma, situation defused
 
1894 the retirement of he
Major General what he rose to be
Universities and College named in his name
This quite amazing soldier of Military Fame
 
 
" When i heard about this gentleman, it desired me to write.

Unknown to me he has actually been in the historical background of one of my poems,

and an ancestor of one of our poets "


The American


On the Greatest country on this Earth

The American, country of their birth
Sioux, Cree, Apache

Native Indians all of thee
 
For generations they hunt and live
Summer bloom, Winter sieve
Move their tribes on freedom lands
Explorers show their poisonous glands
 
Spaniards, British, French too
Expect to take your lands from you


Many battles many deaths
Arrows against their weaponry strength
 
Colonial life as races bond
Indian kids, haired blonde
Civilization hope, wars fade
Has this great country made the grade
 
This country takes another turn
Whilst neighbors fight and burn
The North and South differ so
Free the slaves, let them go
 
Awesome words from Abe the man
Freedom to all, his major plan
But blinkered sight from those so grand
Who actually owns this wonderful land
 
Decades pass, the States grow
Neighbor hoods flourish - flow
American Hispanic, Negro too
Europeans like me and you
 
But sadly in the background mist
The most important has been missed
Do I need to tell you who they are?

Indigenous Man, your ultimate clan
They are The American

 

White Mans Gift

 

From their first step
On my tribal lands
The sickness starts
From their poisoned glands
 
My land they take
They call it home
Our prairie soul
Where my buffalo roam
 
Degraded with uproot
Barren land to land
Their grass is green
While ours is sand
 
Strong tribes diminish
Illness rife
Cholera
White mans strife
 
Their eventual
Was to wipe us out
Brave nations
No longer shout
 
Many battles and conflicts
Arrows against guns
Their ultimate
Have us on the run
 
As I look back
At these history rifts
Where would we be
Without those
White Mans Gifts
 

Shasta Costa Girl
 
Proud Shasta girl
Overlooks her lands
As the Eagle soars above
Their future bland
 
The Rogue River Wars
Of 1855-56
Where many tribes
Were forced to mix
 
Three reservations
Where they were told to exist
Coast, Siletz and Alsea
To never resist
 
But tomorrows change
For the proof of the past
Is the Restoration Bill
So these tribes can last
 
On November 18th 1977
The second tribe in the US
Given Full Restoration
 
Recognition
After all these years
Their future in their hands
And their ancestors past tears

 

Massacred Nation

 

The year 1890
December 29th
Wounded Knee, South Dakota
My tribe lost their lives

 

The USS 7th
On their orders so
To round up the Sioux
Railroad herd them and go 

 

Us Lakota were next
To disarm their request
But my cousin Black Coyote
At best he was deaf

 

Not hearing the orders
To lay down our guns
A chain reaction
Ensued on my tribal ones

 

Chaos and mayhem
Distressed our grounds
This proud nation
Beaten down

 

Men, women and children
300 slain
Another reminder
For the white mans gain

 

To disrespect the fallen
Slows our souls to our gods
We were left in a blizzard
Hardened like logs

 

In three days we rose
Civilians did lift
And dumped us unceremoniously
In a hole in the drift

 

My corpse and my peoples
Stripped and robbed
As flakes of snow
Confirm our spirits have sobbed

 

As i am reborn again
In another country
It gives me the freedom
To look back and see

 

That December day in 1890
Gunning down innocent ones
Not so mighty
The Medal of Honor
In their distinguished past
The record still stands
On their chests they flash

 

But attitudes change
As two centuries pass
The Medal Of Honor
Has won back its class
No longer the weak
Gunned down by the strong
Its man against man
Sometimes they do wrong

 

So as i sit back in my adopted nation
Will i live again past this lives station
Writing the wrongs of modern man
This Lakota warrior who never