The Land We Dreamed: Poems

The Prophet

55 The Prophet I. 1795 How eagerly we took the white man’s bait. In one lifetime we began to forget ourselves. Where are the buffalo and deer? I see only tame cattle that we must feed and pigs that root in dirt. Where are our bows of ash and the hickory arrows they sent flying? I see our guns and leaden shot, but we can’t make them. Where are the deerskin clothes and the good warm buffalo robes? I see the white man’s cloth, but we can’t make it. Where is the good Indian corn and the bread we make of it? I see the white man’s grain, but we don’t grow it. Where are our villages untouched by the rum 56 they gave to make us drunk and foolish? Manito made this land, then made us for it. The trail of the buffalo is older than our people. We took their rum, their pigs and cattle and their soft clothing. Now look what we’ve become. II. 1800 I dreamed we were dazed by hunger, walking in a meadow full of empty bones. Hunger lay in our stomachs like stones. The bones began to come together with a hard, rustling sound. Skin and fat, sinew and muscle rose from the ground and bound the bones of slaughtered buffalo. The people fell upon them in their terrible need, 57 but their hands could not hold them and their teeth could not tear through the strong coarse hair. Wheeling crows filled the air with the noise of angry disappointment. Our children cried. We are all sleeping now. We must awaken and remember who we are, before we pass away and are forgotten. ...