Friday, December 4, 2015

River of the Heart. December 4 2015

Do you remember freedom?
How the men of our people walked in their splendid nature
Before the captivity of their disappearance?
Do you remember?
How the women walked in their noble beauty
In the waxing and waning of the majestic moon
Before they were reduced to cattle?

Little more than seven generations
And the memory in the blood
Still mourns the bodies in the dust

I ask now,
Do you remember freedom?
How we walked barefoot
In the holy place
Wearing cloaks of skin and hair?
Bark and flax

Seven times seven generations
And the memory in the blood still moves.

Can you remember before this here, now, came to be?
It is a long walk back
To where we were free

Yes, I can remember, but only because the blood informs my heart.

The blood informs my heart
With the memory that flows beyond seventy times seven
All these generations of the people before this:
When we were free and walked where we would, unafraid.

And now!
We are all sectioned out, lined and crossed out
By denial of blood and ransacking of the sacred ground
That holds the dust that once drew the breath down
Into the blood that informs the heart.
The heart, which carries the torch of the splendid nature
And the noble beauty
The one who stood, and of whom it was said,
"By the hand of the Creator."

We must all walk through our times
But to surrender memory?

For a brief eternal moment
The soul fluttered in the hand of God.

Memory fords the river of blood
The life of the people
And I must walk forward
Walk forward
With the river pounding in my ears.

We were once a little stream
A rivulet in the high mountain
Now a river coursing to the delta
Rich in fertile mud
The delta
To the sea.

12/4/15 

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