Native | Teen Ink

Native MAG

July 12, 2016
By tigerlilyorange SILVER, Lexington, Massachusetts
tigerlilyorange SILVER, Lexington, Massachusetts
6 articles 0 photos 15 comments

Favorite Quote:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Goethe


The highway, long and dusty,
Stretches off between vermilion crags,
In and around boulders, whose descents are halted
Only by sparse tufts of grass and hop clover.
New Mexico; Arizona.

The same roadside stands sell bits and pieces
Of tradition
To curious strangers.

Scattered like the bodies after Wounded Knee,
Their homes huddle together down behind the road.
Tired frames shelter the weary bodies
Of once proud Navajo, Hopi, and others.

Betrayed since the first gun
Was shot on their shores –
Blood seeping slowly into their earth.
Ancestors lying dead.
Lies. Deceit.
Cast offs of “progress,”
They are living casualties.

Once they rode horses here,
Below the rolling clouds –
Beyond the sweeping horizon.
Galloping so fast that sweat streaked their saddles
And the wind blew just to keep up with them.
They were noble and strong –
They belonged.


The author's comments:

I was inspired to write this poem after driving through the arid orange dusts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Not only was the terrain alien, so was the vivid juxtaposition of cultures. At both the Mittens and the Four Corners, not our customary rangers, but Native Americans selling intricate strings of multicolored beading, greeted us. For the first time, I became aware that pueblos such as Sky City, jewelry fairs, or Museums, do not confine these people who made the unconfined infinity of this continent their home long before we arrived. Through this poem I hope to bring awareness to Native Americans living all around the USA in the breathtaking beauty they consider their homeland.


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