Playing Cowboys And Indians To Wounded Knee Poem by Terence George Craddock

in those far away days of play
in that time of long hot summer days
in the school yard released from classrooms
in morning break perhaps at lunchtime
in early elementary school primary school

sometimes at break we played Cowboys and Indians

there were always a half dozen 10 or 12 Cowboys
there were outnumbered only ever 2 or 3 Indians
there on the ground the grass in rough and tumble
there in ambush play attacks by Cowboys and Indians
there could only ever be one outnumbered outcome

Indians would loose no matter how hard we fought

I was in play always an Indian never a Cowboy

I would each time be pounded buried beaten down
I would be buried in a pile of heaving Cowboy bodies
I would be entangled in a mass of interlocked arms legs
I would be weight pounded trapped to the ground face down
I would be no matter how hard fought be immoveable pinned

choice was to choose one Cowboy to single target fight pin

what meaning if any hides lingers in childhood games?

years later I would at high school read
'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'
it would be one of the saddest most horrible
novels of injustice I would ever read
it would pin heart like dead butterflies impaled...

'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'
is an horrific history of Native American
exploitation annihilation land stolen treaty broken
a history of American settler expansionism
its devastating effects on the Native Americans.

I never learned to hunt with spear bow
like Native Americans I was never Native American
yet my heart bled haunted spirit impaled

a love for nature for freedom for wild things
a love for great spirit a love for life to love honour life
a love born for every great spirit breath taken

is very Native American we are a dying breed

when you look at your poisoned water
when you look at your nuclear radiated land
when you look at your dust bowls deforested

when you look at extinct animals in museums
when you look at your vast areas plastic filled oceans
when you look at glaciers ice caps melting hot

when you look at your wild raging forest fires burning
when you look at streams creeks rivers cities flooding
when you look at black hands ash in the wind choking

remember there was value in dying land animals oceans
remember there was value in Native American ecosystems
remember there was value in a persecuted dying breed