Our Native Earth
We do not carry it in lockets on the breast,
And do not cry about it in poems,
It does not wake us from the bitter rest,
And does not seem to us like Eden promised.
In our hearts, we never try to treat
This as a subject for the bargain row,
While being ill, unhappy, spent on it,
We even fail to see it or to know.
Yes, this dirt on the feet suits us fairly,
Yes, this crunch on the teeth suits us just,
And we trample it nightly and daily --
This unmixed and non-structural dust.
But we lay into it and become it alone,
And therefore call this earth so freely -- my own.
My Heart Is Native
An Indian maid with long plaited hair
Indian tunes crooning through the air
Could not I be she?
My heart is native.
A bare-foot black girl on coral sand
Holding a conk shell in burnished hand
Could not I be she?
My heart is native.
A snow-block home by an open flame
An Inuit child with an Inuit name
Could not I be she?
My heart is native.
Under the skin are we not the same
Just being people no matter the name
Could not that be we
When hearts are native?
Freedom
Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!
Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,
Breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning
Call of the future;
Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith
You fasten yourself in night's stillness,
Mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths;
Freedom from the anarchy of destiny
Whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,
And the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.
Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world,
Where movements are started through brainless wires,
Repeated through mindless habits,
Where figures wait with patience and obedience for the
Master of show,
To be stirred into a mimicry of life.
