They Came From Distant Lands Poem by Osceola Waters

Our country was taken from us by people from a distant land,
They came in great canoes,
That where powered by white clouds that captured the wind,
They appeared through mist and fog like ghosts,
Gliding across the big water in silence and unannounced,
They demanded their king we must obey,
Their religion we must embrace,
Attend a place of confinement and say grace,
This place has no sunshine,
Nothing that resembles nature,
They say,
Down on your knees and pray,
Never-the Great Spirit does not want that,
Heads down-no wonder they cannot see,
They can't see the mountains or the soft flowing streams,
We will pray our way,
They betrayed and slay in a deceitful way,
Take our land,
Take our women,
Kill our game all of this in Gods name,
This happened and is still happening,
We are now dispossesed,
We are in their way of progress,
They curse our very existence,
Their laws passed by congress,
To their advantage,
To our disadvantage,
Our sacred grounds,
Our sacred sites,
Our berial grounds desecrated,
Our spiritual items stolen,
They think only of conquest and to conquer,
They think us inferior,
That they are superior,
The buffalo is seen as a rodent of the prairie,
The prairie is taken for cattle country,
Ancient forests cut down to build their homes,
These people dig and blast-scar our Mother Earth,
When they finish the land is useless and ugly beyond belief,
There's no relief,
The rivers they harness are never to be released,
Filth and junk pollute rivers that use to be crystal clear,
A communization of waste-sterilization no habitation,
A river becomes a refuge of toxic sludge,
Mountains will be moved by giants in the future,
We will become strangers in our own land,
We will become a minority over run by black and white,
We will be given land that's ours,
But not ours,
The land can be reclaimed at the goverment's whim,
Those that came bought their law,
In it we saw,
A way to win the war,
We use their books of law,
We put into practice the white mans thoughts,
For we are good students-we have learned well,
We will emerge out of obscurity,
Be cause rights with us,
We will win back what's ours-with out a shot fired,


(Posted by: cougartracks/My Vision My Dream Osceola Birdman Waters.)