our lakota chief warned
the white man speak the twisting serpent voice
calling us sioux (little snakes)

& i only a youth eyes see
white man rattlesnake medicine
for our people

took the black hills from us
teach the children their customs
but we do not parlay
for theirs

the paiute medicine-man
bring us the ghost dance
from the ancestors
to call back the old
 
the shaman said if we ghost dance
the buffalo
shall again multiply
& the ancestors visit
leading us to the land

not a war dance
but while we danced
the pony soldiers still came
& killed us like dogs

my mother & brother now
redden the earth

they can not ever
stop us from dancing












2.7 10/10
© Brian Peter Hodgkinson