HOW THE MOON BECAME A STRANGER by Chrystos In honor of Clayton Arrow-Topknot, July 2011 Some came with rifles pointed at our hearts We died as they decided if we are human, have souls the popes court argued this point for years We tried to point in another direction as pointing is extremely rude in our cultures They arrived with war hearts We thought they were guests This points to the continuing clash between us points which stab our hands as we work to includ ein our place strangers who hate us instead of being grateful for our haven They discovered we died rather than be imprisoned or enslaved Not as sa point of honor but because we could not comprehend the point of cages and whips mystified by their meaning for when we live in Spirit these are useless objects which store no food for winter offer no protection from rain cook no meals We didnt even use whips on our horses Soon they stole darker people than ourselves with hair like buffalo hide They pointed whps at their hearts forcing them to do work the rifles were too lazy to do Sometimes we were able to hide & protect the ones who escaped You can see their faces in old tribal sepias All of us together were forced to learn the deadly whip of english this language of greed, dominance, rape & theft so wed no longer be able to speak to our ancestors the point of this was to force us to become slaves to buying things, more things to fruitlessly attempt to fill the emptiness in our souls & the pockets of the insatiable rich who bulldoze their way into copying exacxtly what they had supposedly fled for freedom which they used to incinerate women demolish forests create hierarchies of terror build more prisons All these lies bubble up burning in the eyes of the young who need to know what happened here We, of the Indigenous light adhere to our tribal names not some race imposed by strangers who cannot see the free colors of the snow We are footsteps whod never dare deface the moon When we pray safe in our lodges this pointy, whipped world the rifles brought evaporated We are reborn in our Grandmothers heart no longer strangers to ourselves This is why our ceremonies are outlawed Even as he kills, a gun is not a fool, not a god Race is an advertising gimmick Different colors of flowers all of whom bear fruit Watch stallions red or black or brown or buff fight each other teeth flashing under the moon over mares not the colors of their hides The point of all this crazy strangeness was to appease the poor rifles who do not understand how to be human & believe god to be a tyrant instead of Creation Perhaps time is bearing fruit Lets bury these useless deadly rituals To be a rifle is to be a slave When we come to courage to abandon our prisons of race & war we become blessedly pointless.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 17:19:43 +0000
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