'Sounds Of A Distant Past' Poem by Linda Winchell

As I listen Indian flutes, warbleing out their tunes,
With a softness not a bird could sing, to the sun, stars' and moon.

Now filling my Spirit, with sounds of a distant past,
How much of this flows in my blood, that bekons me further back?

Where buffalos' once roamed,
And many tribes' made this land their home.

For what did man gain, to bring these people death and pain?
Blankets' infused with a White mans' desease,
Infested with a plauge, not given to ward off winters' cold and freeze.

Our heads' should hang so low, that not an eye would be seen,
Now the past is reversed, bringing us now to our knees!

But yet another villain, has risen once again,
From the nations of tribes, of Indian women and men.
Where the damage is done by the hands of their own,
Taking pride from their people, with free money and homes'.

They suffer inside, with a lack of purpose and Indian pride,
Taken to drinking, and sniffing spray cans', new drugs,
And their children in gangs of killers and thugs!

Yes, the paychecks' come in, but nothing is there,
Your now stripping them of self, and now seeing them bared.

Christians' thought they had God's answers you see,
To rip children from their parents, and burn down their tepees'.

Then put them in White mans' clothes, and cutting their hair,
Then placing a Bible in their hands, and saying, 'We cared! '

How ignorance has proven, only but once again,
That whatever man touches, has a deep affect from his hands'.

Drums' will beat out one day again I am sure,
Reclaiming all God's goodness by its' meek, and its' pure!

'Oh Mother Earth, hear your childrens' call!
' Across this land, to be heard by one and by all! '