Monday Music: Alaskan Nights (David Schwartz)

A nice mellow tune on the clarinet by David Schwartz. This is one of the eclectic selections made for the soundtrack for the popular 1990s Northern Exposure television series.

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Saturday Haiku: Roadways

sometimes a small road

can lead to great abundance

or a simple joy

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Image: "the roadway at joy farm"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on canvas



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The Gift of Christmas

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Photo by Rachael Callahan @objectivityrach
A view from Railroad Park of Downtown Birmingham at Christmas time


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Monday Music: Heer Jezus heeft een Hofken (Traditional Dutch Carol)

Here is a delightful traditional Dutch carol, "Heer Jezus heeft een Hofken." YouTube notes are written in Dutch. Since I don't speak Dutch, I had Google translate for me:

"Sing along with 'Lord Jesus has a courtship', performed by choir Capella during the recordings of the Netherlands Zingt in the Westerkerk of Amsterdam."

The English translation of this carol, known as "King Jesus Hath a Garden," is often sung at Christmastime. To hear the English version, go to my post at Music of the Spheres.

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Saturday Haiku: Inner Woods

inner woods

making the pathway

uncertain

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Image: "inner woods"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on canvasboard



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Re-Visioning John the Baptist

How about a John the Baptist who looks like Fabio and preaches like Mister Rogers?

With some help from Leonardo da Vinci and Episcopal priest Penny Nash, that is the image emerging for me this week. The Rev Nash, on her blog, Penelopepiscopal, makes the connection with her post, “Fabio in the Wilderness.” Check it out here.

It was synchronicity, or perhaps “the spirit of God,” that brought this home to me to meditate upon during this Advent season. Last Sunday, during the Gospel reading from the third chapter of Luke, I heard, as if for the first time, what John the Baptist was teaching. He told the people, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." To tax collectors, he said, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers were advised, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

As the priest closed the Gospel book and turned to give the homily, I was thinking that what we heard was almost like a brief synopsis of the teachings of Jesus. Certainly it was something of a prelude to his coming, and the people responded to John’s message with hope and expectation. Some even thought that perhaps they were seeing the Messiah standing before them.

The priest reiterated in the homily that John was explaining to the people that the way to prepare for the reign of God is to start sharing what we have and to treat others fairly. Then I read Penny Nash’s homily on her blog where she bring da Vinci’s painting to the fore along with the Gospel reading to give us a new image for the forerunner of Christ. She has much more to say about it, and I recommend her post to you.

As we wait in Advent for the celebration of Christ’s first coming, there is something new for me in re-visioning John the Baptist. So my words today are not my own. They are a repeating of things heard and seen this week, and offered here so others may catch a glimpse.

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Image: St. John the Baptist
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
Medium; Oil on walnut wood
Courtesy of Wikipedia

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Monday Music: Common Threads (Bobby McFerrin)

Bobby McFerrin wrote the music for Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, a 1989 documentary film that tells the story of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Much of that music appeared on his album, Medicine Man, from which this track is taken.

Enjoy the relaxing vocalizations of Bobby McFerrin.

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Saturday Haiku: Mountains Rise

evergreens

beside the still lake

 mountains rise

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Image: "mt chocorua dawn"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on canvas



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Rediscovering the Wonder of Life

 "The silver river in the night sky" photo by "matthewwu" courtesy of Flickr

Unitarian Universalist minister, the Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein*, has beautifully encapsulated an important truth for our time from Paul Ricouer concerning what the French philosopher referred to as “the second naïveté.” On her blog, Peacebang, she states:

“In Paul Ricouer’s philosophy of second naïveté, we enter into the mystery of sacred stories not with the naïveté of one who can’t think for themselves, but by choosing to engage the poetic sensibility rather than leading with our critical, intellectual faculties.  More simply put, when we have reached the maturity of second naïveté – a kind of chosen innocence — we make a decision to abide together in wonder rather than to dismantle sacred narratives in an insistent search for rational facts.”

What is remarkable about her presentation is the story she tells from her own life to illustrate her personal journey. She tells of an encounter she had with a taxi driver in Romania, and in the telling, she sheds some light on what Ricouer was getting at. In doing so, Weinstein helps us to better appreciate those moments of encounter that may come our way. Her example shows us how we may find communion with a fellow traveler rather than separation from those who may see things a little differently. We are, after all neighbors and kin on this plane of existence.  

Dr. Weinstein shows us how a rational human being living in the 21^st century can incorporate that healthy use of “second naïveté” to appreciate the wonder of this life that we live.  

Here is how she begins her story:

Second Naivete: The Mystical Way of Faith

By Dr. Victoria Weinstein

It’s that magical, mythical time of year again. Virgin births and super novas shining directly over a little barn, angels crashing through walls to make shocking pronouncements, roly-poly men with white beards in red suits flying through the sky in a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,

“Do you hear what I hear?

Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,

Do you hear what I hear?

A song, a song high above the trees

With a voice as big as the the sea,

With a voice as big as the the sea.”

Do you hear what I hear?

Well, sometimes the answer is just “no.”  The word from researchers lately is that some of us are genetically programmed to have a rational view of life, and others are born with a gene that makes them more prone to a mystical experiences of the transcendent. I hope this will come as good news to all of us, who join in a free religious tradition that is not invested in our believing the same things, but in seeking and creating together inner peace, higher consciousness, intellectual challenge, compassionate community and spiritual depth wherever we may find it, by whatever name we may give it… (Please continue Weinstein’s story on her blog, Peacebang)

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*The Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lynn, Massachusetts.

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Monday Music: One More Cup of Coffee (Heger Walter Band)

Here is an amazing and beautiful rendition of Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee." This Dylan cover is by the Heger  Walter Band. I think this group takes the song to a new level! (Lead vocals, guitar: Hans Heger; guitar, vocals: Karl Heinz Walter; bass: Math Schouten, drums: Peter Joosten: keys accordeon: Wilbert Verheijen)

One more cup of coffee HEGERWALTERBAND PaludaRecords ISRC NLL280500018 from paludarecords on Vimeo.

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Saturday Haiku: Winter Snows

snows settle

on the mountainside

quiet days

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Image: "new hampshire: winter"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on cardboard



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Peace in a Time of War

"Aleppo after the Fall" speaks to that uneasy peace, that "haphazard reprieve from war," and the attempt to find a normal life in a world that seems to be perpetually at war.

[Originally posted on June 4, 2017 as part of the "Bearing Witness to the Times" series]

Ruins near the citadel in Aleppo’s Old City. Credit Sebastián Liste/Noor Images, for The New York Times

Aleppo After the Fall

In a city so ancient

That a merchant can stand on a street corner

Where his blood ancestor may have stood

Three thousand years before,
There comes a haphazard reprieve from war.

A weary silence falls
Where streets once bustled

With sales of fabric and spice

Amid the sweet cacophony

Of exuberant traders and pilgrims.

Like a shattered plate,

The courtyard of The Great Mosque

Now lies in fragments –

The hundreds of daily footsteps

But a prayerful memory.

Children play –

When they dare come out –

In the rubble-strewn side streets

While old men try to remember

The ancient pathways.

A flute still plays in the distance;

A dancer regains her steps.

The rest of us settle

Into a strange new world

Where victory is as dangerous as defeat.

                                                                      ~ CK

“On March 7, 2006, the sun rises on Aleppo. Aleppo, along with Damascus and Sana'a, is one of the three oldest inhabited cities in human history,  added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1986.” (From The Atlantic Monthly, “Aleppo Before the War"  - Photo by Khaled Al Hariri / Reuters)

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Monday Music: Bohemian Chanukah (Six13)

Six13, the award-winning Jewish acapella group from New York, does an amazing adaptation of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (call it parody if you must) while explaining the significance of Hanukkah that even we gentiles can understand.

Hanukkah, the eight day Jewish Festival of Lights, began yesterday (Dec 2) and goes until next Monday (Dec 10).

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Saturday Haiku: Forest Path

quiet forest path

eliciting warm tribute
to the stately trees

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Image: "view through a forest road"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on canvasboard



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On Spiritual Practice, Poetry, and the Inadequacy of Language

I am currently reading one of the most exciting books I have read in a long time, Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton  by Christopher Pramuk. I found out about the book while I was reading Merton's poem, "Hagia Sophia." The book touches upon many of my own interests. I could try to tell you about it but instead I will refer you to a review of the book by Catholic priest and peace/environmental advocate, John Dear in an article for the National Catholic Reporter, "Living our theology with Merton's feminine image of God." 

The Witness of Abraham Heschel

I recently read a passage in Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton in which the author is quoting Rabbi Abraham Heschel. I found Heschel’s words to ring true from my experience as they may to some of you who are involved in a spiritual practice. The writing is dated in that he uses “man” where current writers would use “humans,” or “humanity,” but he captures very well the moments in prayer when words fail to convey experience. While that concept is nothing new, Heschel takes that experience itself, that state which the spiritual practitioner finds unutterable, and reveals how it can further nurture our being as “the nursery of our soul, the cradle of all our ideas.” 

“In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is no escape, nor an act of being unfaithful to the mind. For the world of unutterable meanings is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.

“What the word can no longer yield, man achieves through the fullness of his powerlessness. The deeper the need in which one is placed through this powerlessness, the more does man reveal himself in his essence, and himself becomes expression. Prayer is more than communication, and man is more than the word. Should we feel ashamed by our inability to utter what we bear in our hearts? God loves what is left over at the bottom of the heart and cannot be expressed in words…The unutterable surplus of what we feel, the sentiments that we are unable to put into words are our payment in kind to God.”

(From Man’s Quest for God by Abraham Heschel)

The Witness of John Keats 

Along a parallel vein, and somewhat related, I serendipitously came across an essay that speaks of how the poetic imagination can attempt to convey those higher aspects of reality that might otherwise defy description due to the inadequacy of language. The article, “John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” addresses trends in poetry and brings to the forefront the difference in Keats’ approach to poetry compared to other Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth, for example, was intent upon describing the world that is known through the five senses. He admittedly avoided the abstract. His purpose was to bring the reader into an experience of the beauty of the world, to allow a full appreciation of the experience of being alive. Keats, on the other hand, saw how inadequate mere descriptions of the physical world are, no matter how beautiful the words, in conveying an experience of higher awareness.

Keats’ contribution to poetry was the creative use of metaphor to bring the reader close to those ineffable moments of awareness – those incidents in which we seem to know that something absolutely marvelous is happening around us and to us and with us. He truly brought English poetry to a higher level in his day.

“John Keats and the Need for a New Renaissance in Poetry,” is calling upon modern poets to take a cue from Keats rather than focusing on mere descriptions of life as it is lived. It speaks to the use of language, the limits of language, and how the creative use of language can point the reader to what would otherwise be considered inexpressible higher aspects of reality.

Near the end of the article we find the following passage:

“The most profound creativity emerges from an intense and impassioned feeling that longs to communicate something located deep within one’s soul. It is beyond anything that can be grasped directly through the senses. The process of digging deep into one’s soul, and struggling to bring these passions into this world, to 'name' them, is arguably one of the most difficult challenges any mortal can face. It also parallels the process of discovery any great scientist must go through in order to develop a hypothesis, which the universe will accept.

“For Keats, the imagination was not the mere fancy of a Romantic, and the material world of sense perception was not the defining basis of his poetry. Rather than being concerned with a precise description of the 'real' world, the agency of the creative imagination was the hallowed realm in which a greater Truth about the nature of man and the universe could be captured…”

For those interested in reading this fascinating essay in full, you can find it at https://www.thechainedmuse.com/single-post/2018/10/29/John-Keats-and-the-Need-for-a-New-Renaissance-in-Poetry

Living the Metaphor

If I may make one more attempt to tie these two pieces of writing together, what Heschel is doing in his passage on prayer is that he is making the experience itself a metaphor by which we can lay hold of an intangible experience so that it becomes a means for a higher purpose. Keats demonstrates how the use of metaphor can allow us to find higher meaning in our everyday experience.

In Sophia, Pramuk is using the writings of rabbinical scholar and poet Abraham Heschel, along with the work of poet and Anglican priest John Henry Newman*, to illustrate the path taken by Thomas Merton who was a Trappist monk, scholar, and poet. He explains that these spiritual practitioners, unlike the typical western theologians, make use of poetics to describe a relational spirituality. Pramuk speaks of how poets have made use of metaphor to expand the efficacy of language and thus demonstrates how theology, when taking the poetic approach, can more effectively speak to the ineffable experience.

I would add that Heschel has shown us how the person who gives oneself over to the practice of prayer/meditation can actually become the metaphor that enlightens and enlivens.


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*John Henry Newman was an Anglican priest who later became a Catholic priest and cardinal. In his earlier days as an Anglican priest, he was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement which sought to restore Catholic liturgy and ritual to the Church of England. Those efforts are still seen today in Anglo-Catholic parishes. He became one of the most important theologians of the 19th century, but may be best remembered by students of literature for his role as poet. 



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Monday Music: Love Is Here to Stay (Tony Bennett, Diana Krall)

From the YouTube site: "An unprecedented union of the two greatest living jazz singers, ‘Love Is Here To Stay’ celebrates Gershwin’s 120th anniversary with a new recording of timeless American popular standards and jazz repertoire."

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Saturday Haiku: Lakeside

that restful summer

our boats anchored together

the loon's distant call

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Image: "robin hood, maine"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on canvasboard



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Happy Thanksgiving

And now a helpful word from The Vidalia Onion:

For all who are making those Thanksgiving plans...May you find enough Episcopalians to bring sufficient decorum to the holiday table (or at least a détente until the last slice of pumpkin pie is served).

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Cartoon by Andy Marlette, editorial cartoonist for the Pensacola News Journal (and nephew of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette).



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Monday Music: When I Grow Too Old to Dream: Nat King Cole

"When I Grow Too Old to Dream," by the legendary Nat King Cole

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Lines Composed on a Birthday

I had forgotten that I wrote this a couple of years ago when someone suggested I write a few lines on my birthday. At the time I called it "a first draft stream-of-consciousness let-the-words-fall-into-place attempt" composed on Facebook. It showed up on my Facebook Memories today, so I share it again here:

Birthday Lines

Years are passing
Sights are fleeting
Thoughts are bleating
In the meadow.

Days are ending
Someone calling
Night is falling
In the glen.

Forward looking
Sometimes seeming
Like the dreaming
Of a lark.

Looking back
Across the lake
The foaming wake
Disperses soon.

In the moment
Breathing deeply
Nothing cheaply
Enters in.

Moving forward
Careful choosing
No sense losing
In the flood.

In the circle
All is counted
Faith comes mounted
On a steed.

Quiet times
Though days are numbered
Unencumbered
Spring rolls in.

Finding grace
When time is swirling
Love’s unfurling
Fills the day.

                              ~ CK

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Photo: Shades Creek, Birmingham, Ala.
Credit: Charles Kinnaird



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Saturday Haiku: Woodland Lake

woodland lake
autumn crescent moon
limned with gold

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Image: "Evening wood scene and crescent moon"
Artist: e.e. cummings
Medium: Oil on cardboard



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Freedom Chrerished or Freedom Forfeited?

The following essay was first posted May 7, 2014. Many times in this space I have voiced my support for the Quaker concept that war is not the best way to resolve conflicts. I understand that that is not a majority opinion in America, nor is it even the prevailing tenet of many in the Christian community.

Even so, if we are going to call our young men and women into service for our country, we should take heed that we are not so cavalier in our decisions to mobilize the troops. Are we fighting for freedom, or are we fighting for corporate interests? Have we lost sight of what freedom actually means? Below, I tell how I came to understand that too often “freedom has become just another word for empire.”

When Freedom Becomes Another Word for Empire

We have special times in which we appropriately honor those soldiers who have served our country. Veteran’s Day which we have just observed is a day to honor those who have served in the military. There are also those times when we particularly honor and pay tribute to those soldiers who have died in the line of duty, paying the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Memorial Day, coming up in May is a day to honor the fallen. 

I should state at the outset that I am opposed to war and have often stated that opposition in my blog posts. In the essay, “On the Waging of War,” I outlined my opposition to drone warfare as well as my stance against war in general. While I believe that we should honor those who serve in the military, and I am truly grateful for their service, I believe that war, especially in the modern era, is not the best option and is never an ethical choice. The Quakers have rightly stood as reminders to society that there are better ways than war to resolve conflict.   

Rumors of War

I came of age during the Vietnam War (we stopped calling them wars after WWII, but then when we look back on them we realize they were wars, regardless of what we called them at the time, but that’s a story for another essay). During the Vietnam conflict our country was torn. Some thought we were fighting communism, some thought we had no business meddling in another country half-way around the world. Many were worried about being drafted into military service. Congress, for the first (and only) time made the National Guard  a refuge for the favored sons so that they could appear to be fulfilling their military service without having to actually fight overseas. We later found out that it was not a threat of communism, but a trumped up incident at the Gulf of Tonkin along with a military leadership that was eager to flex its muscle that plunged us into a long war that took the lives of many and left many more scarred – not to mention the devastation visited upon the Vietnamese people.

Today, we seem to be in a constant state of war. We have a populace that sincerely, and rightly, wishes to honor the brave men and women who serve our country in the military. Yet at the same time there is not the political will to challenge the country’s leadership about why we are fighting. It occurred to me a few years ago that something was sadly amiss when I watched a news release about Prince Harry laying a wreath at Arlington Cemetery. Prince Harry of Wales (Captain Wales in the British Army) laid a wreath with the message, “To my comrades-in-arms of the United States of America, who have paid the ultimate price in the cause of freedom.” That is when it came to me that today freedom has become just another word for empire.

It is not, after all, freedom that we are fighting for.  Freedom for the American people was not truly at stake. It is not for freedom around the world for which we send our military troops. It is for the protection of what is deemed to be vital U.S. interests that we are now sacrificing our youth and our treasure. That vital U.S. interest translates into what is best for corporate America, as in access to oil. If there had actually ever been any threat to our country, would the general populace not have been asked to make some sacrifices for the effort, instead of being told to just go shopping?

Early Protests

We heard some protests back before the U.S. entered into war with Iraq. “No Blood of Oil” was the slogan, and the country was pretty much evenly divided over whether we should invade Iraq. There were marches in Washington, D.C. and across the country, but they got little media coverage. Today, it is pretty clear that the war in Iraq was another case of trumped up claims and false pretenses. Since that day, with the on-going conflict in Afghanistan, we seem to be unable to extricate ourselves from military action in that region. Our current president continues to allow drone missile strikes in Pakistan as part of some nebulous “war on terror,” yet we are participating in much of that terror by killing innocent civilians in a country where we are not even engaged in military conflict. For whatever reason, even a president who campaigned on a sincere desire to end the war cannot get us out of armed conflict. Our young soldiers continue to be called to tours of duty overseas. 

Our own freedom in this country was not at issue. The political leadership stoked national fears by saying that we needed to engage the enemy over there in order to keep from have to engage them here at home. The result of engaging the enemy over there has only increased the likelihood of terrorism here at home, yet we continue with military action that includes boots on the ground and drones in the air.  Freedom has become just another word for Empire, and we are now expected to serve that Empire without question – because it would be “short-sighted” and “unpatriotic” to question this country’s military involvement.

A Conflicted Sense of Honor and Duty

I believe that our soldiers should be honored for their bravery, their efforts, and for the hardships they and their families endure. I have colleagues at work who are in the National Guard and the Reserves who have been called to duty in Afghanistan, and before that to Iraq. They are fine people and they represent the true substance of American life.  My conflict is that I do not think that our young soldiers, who are revved up, dedicated, and ready to give their best for our country should be called up to serve in wars that are unnecessary and which are not even in our best national interests. It is as though our national consciousness cannot imagine anything but armed conflict in response to global challenges.

What’s more, our congress, which asks such sacrifice from its soldiers, is not willing to fund legislation to appropriately care for wounded soldiers and their families. Instead, we see commercials from non-profit groups appealing to the public for money so that they can help to rehabilitate wounded soldiers. Why shouldn’t our government, which asks soldiers to give their all, step up to care for those wounded in service to their country? Instead, our country makes use of the kindness and empathy of its citizens, asking us all to donate.  It is bad enough that the down-and-out, those lost on the streets, must rely upon charity. It hurts that dogs in animal shelters are at the mercy of our charitable acts. It is unconscionable that our own soldiers must rely upon that same well of charitable giving for their own well-being.    

Few of us ordinary citizens have felt the brunt of war that soldiers and their families have experienced. Politicians have carried on with business as usual. Corporations have actually prospered, yet there is no call to come to the aid of those soldiers who are fighting corporate America’s wars. Some corporations actually shift operations overseas to avoid paying taxes which could support some patriotic efforts toward our veterans. We have become that military-industrial complex of which President Eisenhower warned, chewing up citizens in the name of patriotism, offering meager help to those cast aside in service to the country.

Are We Powerless to Question Authority?

We have never spoken more loudly of freedom, honor and patriotism. Never have flags been waved so wildly. Never have we been more vocal in our words of thanks to our soldiers. Yet we have turned freedom into just another word for Empire – an empire that demands patriotism and service and which tolerates no challenge to its agenda. Indeed, we are often threatened with fear of losing our standard of living, and, yes, a fear of losing our freedom if we do not meet “the enemy” with sufficient force “over there.”

I’m sorry, but never in my life time have the words “Thank you for your service” been so painful. We are all genuinely thankful for our young men and women in the military, yet we are powerless to stop the war machine as it continues to call up our sons and daughters to dangerous and questionable service.  In our fearful fight for country, we have exchanged the joy of freedom for the oppression of Empire.   

__________________

Photos: Tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery

            Public Domain

            Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
   
            Peace Rally in Sacramento, CA, 2003, prior to Iraq invasion
            Public Domain
            Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons


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Monday Music: Mystery Train (Elvis Presley)

"Mystery Train" was Elvis Presley's first break-out hit with Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee in 1955. It had been written and recorded in 1953 by Junior Parker in the Memphis Blues style. The young Elvis gave it the up and coming rockabilly touch.

Addendum:

What Song Was Really Elvis' First Hit?

One reader let me know that Elvis' first hit was "That's Alright Mama," recorded in 1954. This was indeed a local hit at the time, but did not make the national charts. However, since Billboard Magazine has listed the song among the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time," one can see the merits of naming "That's Alright" as his first  hit.

"Mystery Train," recorded in 1955, according to Wikipedia was "the first recording to make Elvis Presley a nationally known country music star." It peaked at number 11 on the Billboard national charts and is listed in Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."

A third entry is "Heartbreak Hotel," recorded in 1956 and named by some as Elvis' first big hit. According to the Graceland website, it reached number 1 on the country chart and number 5 on the R&B chart, and became Elvis' first single to sell over a million copies.

So what was Elvis Presley's first big hit? I guess it depends upon your perspective and who you ask. At any rate, 1954 to 1956 were outstanding years for the artist as he launched his career.

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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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