This is one of those days
when I see Columbus
in the eyes of nearly everyone
and making the deal
is at the fingertips
of every hand.
The voices beyond my office door
speak of surveys and destruction,
selling the natives
to live among strangers,
rewards fr sine service
or kinship with the Crown.
The terror crouches there
in the canyon of my hands,
the pink opening rosebud mouths
of newborns or the helplessness
of the primal song.
Ghosts so old
they weep for release,
have haunted too long
the burrs and ticks
that climb, burrow and stick.
Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, Piedras,
My Lai, Acteal, Hispaniola, Massachussetts Bay Colony,
my mother, the stones, channels of water,
blood of her veins, every place
a place where history walked,
every ring on Turtle's Back
a mortar to split our seeds,
every sunflower bursting from asphalt
raises green arms to the sun,
every part of Tewaquachi
has formed the placenta
from which we emerge,
every red thing in the world
is the reflection of blood,
our death and our rising.
Now I dance the mission revolts again,
let the ambush blossom in my heart,
claim my victory with their own language,
know the strength of spine tied to spine,
recognize him when he arrives again,
this hungry one, must feed him
poisoned fish. Must lure the soldiers
into trap after trap, must remember
every bit of this.

- Wendy Rose


Babs
A. Park