The Sacred Circle

Numanah, Grandfather, grant me the grace

of a new song far from this lament

of lame words and fossils of a losing game.

No more flat pebbles skimmed between the wetness

of tongue and thigh and eye again!

I never asked to be the son of a stained mattress

who contemplated venison stew and knew

the shame hidden in grease clouds stuck to the wall

behind the woodstove where Grandmother cooked.

I only wanted to run far, so far from Indian land.

And, God damn it, when I was old enough I did.

I loitered in some great halls of ivy

and allowed the inquisition of education:

electric cattle prods placed lovingly

to the lobes of my earth memories.

I carried the false spirit force of sadness

wrapped in a brown sack in the pocket

of a worn, tweed coat.

In junkie alleyways I whispered of forgotten arrows

in the narrow passages of my own discarded history.

Then, when I was old enough

I ran back to Indian land.

Now I’m thinking of running from here.

Pine Ridge, South Dakota

February 1988

Source: Fire Water World (West End Press, 1989)