Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Yesterday morning I spoke with a young woman
Who sat and cried that her Che was gone

I went over to see them as he was someone
I had known for some time

Did I tell you
your grandfather and I went
to Boarding School together

Yes many of us went there a long time ago
It seems it was just the other day

Early this morning in the early frost I got up
It was twilight the time before dawn
In the stillness the years of my life came to mind
To all those that I have known

When I was a child I played on red sandstone
And ran at my mother’s feet
it was just over there
and just a little way away
my father called me and I answered

In school I sat next boys and girls
You know them it was the same for your
You will know them all of your life

Getting on a bus to go to school
Far from home without family
Just indian kids to find our way
To sleep on bunk beds in old buildings
To talk English and stand in line

To eat at the dining hall all year long
Waking up this morning
We have all gone different ways
Some never to be seen again
Others who live just a stone throw away

We shared many things,
To run and play and yet sit quietly
We used to laugh with each other
In the summer to play in the sand and to gather wood
To follow the sheep on hot days and cool nights
We ran to distant mesas and walked these reservation roads

I got up and sat there in the dark
I could hear these thoughtsfrom years ago
These things come to mind all your life
Where will I go
What will I be
Will I go to the moon
To live in big cities and see the world
That is what I heard, the sounds of youth

We really didn’t go that far
Just over the mesa
Just down by the wash
to the second house
With the red roof

To live, to find a life
Just beyond the sage
To hear the wind blow through
Junipers and cedars
To hear the sound of sheep bells

To go out and find life
This boy I knew started from here
Just over there beyond the mesa
Their place was there

In time he met someone
She was from that place
They call it where there is a circle of trees
Teec Nos Pos

Some said they were crazy to get together
They are a too young
They have nothing but really what it is there
Just a pocket full of dreams, a few clothes
But the gleam in their eyes
You see that is better than gold
For their lives where cast in the dawn
Where life grows and is renewed each day

Time has shown they made a good choice
Little children laughed at their place
Now they are all on their own

I remember one day he got up and was alone
She had go to see where it is that lies beyond the dawn
His step as a little slower and he was quiet
But he loved the laughter of children
And had an easy smile and something to say
To everyone that was his way

He had gone away for while but these dusty mesas
Call you and you listen for the quiet
You dream of soft rain and rainbows
That is how it is
To make a family and return
To Dinetah, our land

A life lived in the sticks
a hard life to haul water and wood
to get stuck in the mud and snow
way out in the middle of no where

Now the winter of many snows has come
And flecks of gray gather like dust
So we came home and live here
And from here we go on

To where the winds go
Far beyond any place I have travelled
And there I suspect she waits
The one who made him laugh long ago

To the mothers who reached out
When were were children
To the grandfathers who sang our songs
And I know they came
And offered sweet corn
And some Navajo tea

Today what we feel it is too much to bear
But something reached out and touched me
I mean the kind of feeling where someone is with you
as if you feel them with you
In all the world
there are so many places to go
but for a moment
it stops for just a little while


to know life
to taste it
to see all things
to know everything

As times goes by and you get older
Sometimes there is the longing of the heart
for the lost days of summer

but it really doesn't matter because in a moment
thoughts travel like lightning through stormy skys
and pierce the cobwebs of clouded mind
so we touch eternity for a moment

we go down our own path having known
that somewhere, some place
there are good hearts
color creed vanity and place vanish
so I take your kindness with me forever
let it be said that we stood here and go on
in the mountains, the sky and in all the things
our dear Mother Earth has given us

but in searching for this I find
that there are others waiting
They are small and still growing and have dreams
Their touch is like summer and they follow us around
to taste sweet water, and wait to dance to my song

that you might find the beautyway
How does it go...ah yes it comes....

As I go this way and that way

let me walk in beauty
so that there is beauty before me,
that there is beauty behind me
that as I look up there is beauty above me
that there is beauty to the left of me
that there is beauty to the right of me
that all around there is beauty
come my child walk this way with me

rustywire