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Squinting at Grandmother
Walk with me across the plains
Far from here
How many heartbeats away?
Each step a form shaken
We’ll make it
Carried by the breath and
Each other’s curiosity
Silent cartilage
Load up
Miles pass
Know what’s under here?
Up and down, lots of worlds
Have you ever seen the earth’s blood?
Deeper than dirt
Fire
Burning iron
Somewhere between this surface
and that furnace
Lived the ancient ones
Deep within the miles of Makȟá Oníya, Wind Cave
Lakȟóta lived there for generations
before before
before the anno dominance
before His story
Did they keep time, down there?
Or were they too busy reveling in Mother Earth’s belly?
Like a baby kicking around in the womb
Nine moons worth, unseen but not unmoved by her gravity
But you don’t measure time like that, do you?
By moons
You have numbers inside squares
Clocks and robots
But sometimes you / I / we look up at her, Grandmother Moon,
And admire her lights and shadows
Her smoothed out silver cheeks and asteroid scars
Her great big eye!
Good
She is to be admired
Is she dear to you?
‘What do you mean?” You ask
A silly question for a citizen
Loyal to a blanket of stripes and stars
Not real stars
Pictures, laid out like crops, three colors
How you have reaped
What you’ve sewn
Are you comfortable in there
Wrapped in its bars?
Loyal to a notion
Repatriate
I’m asking
What have you given back to the Moon?
Think I’m being funny?
What if I laugh with you?
What if she joins in,
And we all laugh together?
You wouldn’t like that
You’d rather drop a dagger with your smile
Laugh with a shark grin, sinister
But we’re far from the salty seas
If you laugh at me, in my awe
You might miss the epiphany
Mixing up worship and honor
They aren’t the same, soldier
While you dismiss my respect as heresy
I’ll go on with my devotion
While you scoff and draw crosses
Cutting off the weave
Wrapping thorns around Rosebuds
I’ll be grateful, quiet
While you speak
I’ll listen
Make your argument
I’ll say my prayers
Great Spirit have mercy
On u.s. all
From time to time
Folk make good on their gifts
Give us time Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka
We’ll come round
Do you pray?
Open or closed fist?
Raise it up to the Moon
See if she blinks
