“Indian People Are Still Here”

“Indian people are still here,”
Otis Halfmoon of the Nez Percѐ tribe maintains
and adds: “We are not going away. It is time that
The newcomers to this country started paying
Proper respect to the elder status of the first nations.”

Chief Joseph: “Every animal knows more than you do. White men have too many chiefs. Learn how to talk, Then learn how to teach.”

a nation whose population
marked its intent to live in peace
yet was forced to dress in war-wear
for the U.S. government
began to shoo it away
way down below
onto reservations

in the words of the reservation doctor
he died of a broken heart
his countless appeals
to federal authorities
had after all
failed

“I am tired of fighting . . . from where
The sun now stands. I will fight no more”,
uttered by In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat,
“Thunder coming up over the land from the water”,
Or, “Chief Joseph” as he now is known to us,
the still proudly ignorant populace
that erodes more of his land
night by each dark night
day by each darker day

let us recall the times when we have died . . .
a death by a broken heart

© hülya n. yılmaz, March 18, 2018

[Published by Inner Child Press International in the April issue of the fifth volume of The Year of the Poet]