Face to the Black sky
Of my mother
Red as the day
Red as the new sun
Red as the blood of my life
Poured out for the sins of this land
Board me
In your white schools
For white gods
And white ways
No good for my braids
They sit raw on your floors
Then
Burned
Unfit for a trophy
The weight of guilt and shame
Creating a stench
The mission in Shawnee, Kansas
Was always extermination
By any means necessary
Our souls
For your land
Our boys and girls
For your dreamcatchers
Our buffalo
For your art
I’ll tell the story
My grandmother told me
Once I was the sun
But someone told me to kneel
Now I’m the watcher
As my people die
And I tell the tale
While you deny
Zitkala-Sa
Standing on the rock
Quakers who fought in abolitionist circles
Stealing my soul
For their schools
To be cleansed of red earth
And made of plastics
For their cupboards
And beneath the beds of their children
Waiting the test of time
Without our hearts
This game ends
Without our mother’s tongue
The earth will be forgotten
So we hold them somewhere
They cannot go
To use them
When to live in this world
Could be no more
