Songs Of The Ancients
As ancients they sit in the in between worlds
Smudged into layers of sweet smelling sweet grass
Their memories are joined and alive shared in the back of the universal mind
He is angry for what wasn’t, for what he can’t say
For what was given only to be taken, then broken away
He is angry that he can’t make understood, the words he can’t speak
That even if they were given would only be squeezed between
The dirt and the hurt of the future given greedy past of today
He is angry at the position of beyond
To feel all inside and not have the freedom to communicate
Locked up with all the faces outside and knowing the inside hurts in wishes of knowns
Of traditional knowledges and truth about future of losses
Helpless and alone he watches
While treaties remain the only hope become the offerings of dreams under water
Are whispered on the winds of needs from places of scarcity and longings
Then stolen into another’s wants and urges from the places of plenty
Grabbing in any and all directions
And all he can do is look on and remember healthy and strong the water was kept
And the blameless move along in lines beyond extremes
Chanting dreams but lay sleeping awake from what could be again
And the proud could not hold still to do anything
Not any more but certainly more than less
While they who wait on streets apparently like a dog without a bone
Watch while the mixed up become crazier
And crazy the darkness ran down like empty ink cowering
On pages that stank from other worldly fears
The lies were justified in paranoid rhymes and fancy distortions
In words that came cheap in the mockery for money
Words that are monitored and measured then spat out in the code that they are created in
The skanky kind that are not sung from the spirit but played fearful into hearts
With too much weight but with no thought or regard
That strike too powerfully on their targets to control and distract
And that tongue ran too free and loosely
Carried on a wind that no one could see what blew became lost
But he knows it was stolen one hot summer day
While the birch bark hidden held a truth in its song of life’s spirit
Taken up into the west wind and broken in half in parts and pieces
"Songs Of The Ancients" 15.5" x 22" Acrylic on Birch with Birch Bark
Created more then Seven Generations ago
Birch bark tongues were sewn together the future to the past
Holding onto the present, bringing the past into the present to last.
LauraLee K. Harris.