redstone_on_warpath

TO A N8TIVE TEENAGER

you are unhappy because

you live far from the city

that promises everything and

you think yourself to be poor

because you live among your people.



but when you live like

a person of a city breeding

you will not hear the plants say:

eat off me,

nor will you take

from the animals because of hunger.



the ground will be so hard

that you will want to run

from place to place,and

when you have gone too far

there will be no moss to rest on,

nor will your back find

a tree to lean aginst.



Your thirsty throat

will long to savor water

from the cup of your hand;

instead the liquid that lives in the bottle

will burn your tounge,

soften your mind,

and make your heart ache

for the sweetness of spring water.


Tears will keep your eyes moist

beacuse of a thousand small suns

that never come nor go

flicker eveywhere.

The wind will not carry

messages from land to land,

and the odor of countless machines

will press on your chest

like the smell of a thousand angry skunks.


You will look at the sky

to pray for soft rain;

instead you will find

above the tree tops

lives another city

that stands between you

and your guidance of stars,

and you will wonder where the city people

keep their dead.


A longing will rise in your heart

for the days of your boyhood, and

your fingers will will grip the scared tooth

you hid in yourcoat pocket.

But the train that carried you into

the city never brought the spirit along

that guides lost hunters through the woods.


Again and again your eyes will try to see

the evening dripping off the sun

like wild honey and your nostrils

will quiver for the scent of water

that tumbled through the canyons

of your childhood.


you will stand at a corner

amidist the noise

and bow your head in dispair

because you are humbled

by the desire to touch your fathers canoe

that he carved when you were born.


whenever you look

there is nothing your eyes know,

and when weakness settles into your legs

you will recognize your brother

by the shadow his hunched body casts

in the corner of a street,

in a city where poeple walk

with out seeing the tears

in eachothers eyes.


Chief Dan George