Funny thing about time isn’t it? We enter time from eternity and then return to the infinite when we are done here. In time are all born, and we all die. Also, here in Missouri the Indian people lived before the time when white men came and drove them out. I knew I was Native American on one side of my family, but was surprised to find out, from a surprisingly detail genealogy, that I was native American on both sides. I am 1/16th to the tribes reckoning, and they think I had a great grandmother who was “full blood” but they couldn’t prove that at the time.
These poems are from the time in my life where I was searching the nooks and crannies of my Native American relations. Time for some poetry with a little Indian flair!
My Death Song
as I face death I ask You the Great Mystery grant me the kindness of no fear that the final moments are not seized by terror but grace and good will with someone to hold my hand that is not paid to be there and that my relations come quickly to greet me as I step out into the next journey
Going to Water
(based on the practices of Cherokee Medicine Man Rolling Thunder)
my favorite way to go to water is when it is raining lightly just above a drizzle then the water is more powerful the medicine quicker as the current foams white upon the higher rocks in the small creeks and streams that are common here in Missouri you wade shoeless into the water and face downstream then will pray to the Great Mystery that the water will carry away the debris I like to raise my hands as I begin but that is optional just watch the ripples and currents carry your burdens away leeching the salt from you wounds you will feel the water pulling away what you don't need
