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Janet Kenny's avatar

Just one of these poems reduces a decent human to ash. Imagine being someone with this heritage?

In some sense that is all of us because we are human and humans did this and humans lived this.

Thank you Michael for having the courage to write these.

Janet

Michael R. Burch's avatar

I think an important role of the poet is to put the reader in someone else's shoes and make them think.

agnusde2017's avatar

Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála: December 29, 1890

Brown prairie dogs were huddling in their dens,

And pronghorns spread across the frozen plains.

In the harsh cold of early Winter, breath

Iced up, and some young boys were marked for death

On pale expanses of rough, frozen sands,

Where murder haunts hard frost on the badlands.

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Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála: this stream in South Dakota is also known as Wounded Knee Creek.

Michael R. Burch's avatar

One of the sadder chapters in the saga of "Manifest Destiny."