Bury My Heart

The following was originally posted on February 10, 2017 as part of the Journalistic Poetry series, “Bearing Witness to the Times.” The Keystone Pipeline controversy is once again in the news as a federal judge has issued a ruling that temporarily halts construction (“Federal judge blocks Keystone XL pipeline, saying Trump administration review ignored ‘inconvenient’ climate change facts”).

(Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Image)

Bury My Heart

“Bury my heart at Wounded Knee*.”

Bury our soul at Standing Rock.

Bury our children in the rubble of corporate greed.

In times past,

Those in power 

Sought to remove the indigenous people

By removing their primary natural resource.

Thus began a campaign of slaughter

That nearly drove the American bison to extinction.

It was the logical extension

Of violent disregard

And relentless acts of genocide

Exacted over 200 years of “New World” settlement.

A reprieve was granted.

The bison was ultimately spared

On small parcels of land.

The people were also spared extinction

To live on small parcels of land

Where their children would be robbed of their heritage,

Their elders would be ridiculed,

And their warriors would be doomed

To a life of alcohol and despair.

For 100 years thereafter,

The bison ran

And gained in number.

The people slowly shook off

The manacles of cultural oppression.

Today they make one more stand

At Standing Rock.

They stand as a witness

Against our penchant for destroying natural resources.

They stand as a witness

For human dignity.

They stand as a voice 
In support of the good earth.

While they stand,

They rally a nation.

Yet the well-oiled wheels of an industry

That cannot see its own end

Move to crush the resistance

           to exhaust our resources,

           to pollute the land

           to disregard the humanity it claims to serve.

One more stand

May lead to more burials,

Yet the good earth will remain

Long after our bodies lie in the rubble

Of our own recklessness.

The good earth will flower

After we are gone.

Nature will endure

With or without humanity.

Our song may give hope to the world

Yet the world may one day have to spin

Without our song.

Bury my heart.

Bury my soul.

Bury my children.

                                                ~ CK

                

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* “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee” is a line from the poem, “American Names,” by Stephen Vincent Benet. It is also the title of a book by Dee Brown, subtitled “An Indian History of the American West.” Wounded Knee was the site of the last conflict between the U.S. Army and Native Americans. On December 20, 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Lakota) in South Dakota was the culmination of the Ghost Dance Movement and ended the Indian Wars. 300 Native Americans died that day. Wounded Knee is also the site where the parents of Crazy Horse buried his heart in 1877.

American bison (photo by Skeeze courtesy of Pixabay)

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