Beside Waters of Many Rivers
He stood at the river’s edge,
reminiscing broken boundaries,
abandoned treaties,
lies from the white eyes,
and starvation of the little ones.
They came from the rising of the sun
to the land of his ancestors;
wave upon wave they crossed sacred grounds.
Intruders, they killed buffalo for sport
and massacred the ancient ones
while they slept in their tepees
beside waters of many rivers.
His noble band, a people of the land -
once hunters and horsemen, warriors
and their families, the old and young -
walked across a barren wilderness,
against their will,
to a place of nothingness,
of broken promises -
a reservation of restless people.
Now, like a chameleon, he rode
on his painted pony, silently -
a ghost rider haunting the white eyes.
Darting in and out of nighttime camps,
he stole horses of the pony soldiers –
taking back the wealth of noble hunters.
He watched life flow from wounds
of his enemies, remembering rivers
that ran red with the blood of children.
A phantom of the hills,
a man of great sorrows,
he rode his painted pony of death
toward the setting of the sun,
ruefully recollecting
the broken boundaries,
the abandoned treaties,
and rivers that flowed crimson -
with the blood of his sons.
Larry Powers
‘kansaspoet’
2007
