STONE LAKOTA

  "In honor of them that were laid away during
  that mighty march in conquest of an empire.
        --Lincoln County Historical Society, 1931

My stone friend -
sixty years you watched this valley
where the Greasy and Shell merge waters,
where I was born between their braids
and every year after tramped your hill,
to stand and watch with you,
to witness and grieve the seen and unseen.

Some wonder what to do with you now,
broken and hanging on the corroded edge
of this abused loess lookout.
I see you my friend and mark what hands have done.

The same hands that tossed cases of empties
into buffalo berry canyons below,
ripped apart the iron cage around you,
pounded concrete flesh from your shielding arm,
defaced your gaze with shotgun blasts,
chiseled your nose to a flat grainy scar,
twisted the rebar bones of your nomadic legs
in this stiff white stance,
carved obscenities, trivialities of love, nazi tatoos
on the sand of your skin.

Those hands created this monument,
distilled this memory, synthesized a symbol
from the snake tongue talk and wasichu guilt dreams
of sod busters civic boosters mule skinners gandy dancers
fat cat bankers carnival barkers buckskin butchers
yarn spinners tall tale talkers, the chainsaw ridin' bulldozin'
rail layin' prairie rapin' outstandin' fine citizens
of poor Abe's county.

What shall we do with you now?

Leave you alone my friend.
You are perfect.


© 1993 by Richard W. Todd

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