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durham 5 Jimmie Durham 1886/Haymarket/PraƬrie Grasses We heard the chainsaws at dawn. By noon the sound of their teeth Scream emotionless monotonous scream, More solid than the sun, Had bitten into our nerves, And in the evening, silence without birds, Heavily missing the rustle of small animals. The sun fell beyond the bared hills. Fallen trees tried to whisper one last breath. Next morning the chainsaws began once more, closer. That summer every day was chainsaws, And some of the guys got jobs ripping down our own trees. In the town close by and on the railroad The white men struck for higher wages. Reds, they were called, and we saw some of them As we brought dead trees dead without honor To the railroad depot. But we did not strike. Tecumseh went over to the camp of Crazy Horse. He crossed Illinois and went into Minnesota to visit Where Abraham Lincoln had hung those Indian men Who had killed an army commander and stuffed prairie grass Down his throat. They had asked for food for their children, And the commander said, "Let them eat grass." Abraham emancipated them from their hunger. He sacrificed our fathers for justice, And Tecumseh stopped there and burned some grass at the spot. He crossed South Dakota, into the Black Hills under The shadow of Mt. Rushmore, and stopped at the camp of Crazy Horse. In 1886 Geronimo and Nana and the other Apaches were fighting Their last battle. Geronimo wanted to sit and smoke With Crazy Horse and Tecumseh. He knew that Tres Manos, Wearing his father's hand around his neck, would be there, And Oceola the Black Drink Singer, and Black Hawk. 6 the minnesota review The buffalo spoke to God out of a whirlwind, saying, Where were you when we made the prairie grasses, And sent our daughter to the sons of men, That they might praise us, And all the wolves and stars sang together? It is hay, and we can sell it. These are the true words of Sitting Bull: "I have been to Chicago, and I have seen orphans, Children who suffer because no one claims to own them, And the whites have one law for the rich, Another law for the poor. How can we do battle against such as these?" Tecumseh said, Crazy Horse, Let us go to the Haymarket, Where they are going to fight it out. There at the end of the prairie Will they fight over the hay? Will they recognize us? Will the dying children call out to us? When the bullets hit them They will dance with us the Ghost Dance. ...

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