I didn't start crying til I got to Albert Pike,
A release held back one hundred fifty years
That has been turned from inconceivable sorrow
Into gratitude like a snap of a finger.
The Caddo mounds still hide, disguised behind the Ace
Of Diamonds Hotel. Once they oversaw the plain
Where the Little Missouri River wrapped around
Before, long ago, a dam just moved it away.
A tourist display, with cases of pottery
Full of uncanny spirals, Orion's belt whorls from
An unimaginable time and a circle
Of sand to sift for quartz nuggets and arrowheads
In replica, but I took off my old, broken
California shoes and slowly sifted them through
The memory that was imbedded in the silt
And called for it to speak, but the only sounds
Came from me, and they were all of mourning, that grew
Stronger as I neared the center. I did not know
The earth contained such tones, and could contain them so long,
Like a crystal. They seemed to be beating a drum
Of spirits who refused to be taken, though that
Was the white man's price, the one thing asked to give up,
Yet as my feet received the sound, it was they
Who wanted to heal me, for all that I'd carried,
All that I had taken, all I'd seen, for I was
The one with my feet in the loam, the one who could feel
Life's sanction, for those beyond the illusion's veil
Were glad to have slaked off the skin of moccasin,
All that they'd endured but could not express except
In the codes they imbedded, that wait with joy
To heal the people, that is what she wants, to give
As the mother she is, to children still learning,
Still fucking things up, but blessed somehow to be born,
Still free to explore. We have all been here before.
The mounds themselves are built on top of other ones,
At each apex a memory of the vortex
Unlocked through such sound to vibrate the cosmic clock
Aligned so precisely with this spot. The giants
They buried, the pottery they lovingly wrapped
Honored the giant ones, as we remember them,
Amateur archeologists, with such a deep
A-ho-a of respect. Still, there is just enough
Wrong to confuse and delude. On the wall
Was a frightening photo of Geronimo
In a Buffalo Bill show, trained seal performer
And a copy of his Death Return, cause listed
As pneumonia, when everyone knew, and even
The land herself remembers he died of lead.
