Red Bird

Red Bird

Face to the Black sky

Of my mother

Red as the day

Red as the new sun

Red as the blood of my life

Poured out for the sins of this land

Board me

In your white schools

For white gods

And white ways

No good for my braids

They sit raw on your floors

Then

Burned

Unfit for a trophy

The weight of guilt and shame

Creating a stench

The mission in Shawnee, Kansas

Was always extermination

By any means necessary

Our souls

For your land

Our boys and girls

For your dreamcatchers

Our buffalo

For your art

I’ll tell the story

My grandmother told me

Once I was the sun

But someone told me to kneel

Now I’m the watcher

As my people die

And I tell the tale

While you deny

Zitkala-Sa

Standing on the rock

Quakers who fought in abolitionist circles

Stealing my soul

For their schools

To be cleansed of red earth

And made of plastics

For their cupboards

And beneath the beds of their children

Waiting the test of time

Without our hearts

This game ends

Without our mother’s tongue

The earth will be forgotten

So we hold them somewhere

They cannot go

To use them

When to live in this world

Could be no more