Techumseh
Oh what vision is snatched and traveled with
Gathered up here, so that those that would
Could keep the red and white stripes there
South of the Great Lakes
For they need not, add another - white - star
To their blue wrecked tangle collection in white
His name was Tecumseh, Shooting Star
And he died
One - off the Confederate Flag
Keeping Canada from becoming
A used-to-be name in history
Keeping us from becoming U.S.
We remain separate from the Long Knives
We are here now
Because of a Shawnee
Who traveled and gathered
Fifteen hundred
From Tribes of Florida, Great Lakes
The Western ones across Mississippi
And added them to the British thousand
In The 1812 rebellion
A brother and the white words taught
By his first wife Rebecca
A link to address
Was complete
In the mouth of Raven
A messenger from the void
With his medicine of magic
Plucked as if a seed of vision
From the eye of a twin
Tenskwautawa, The Prophet
The image,
Like the reflection of the sun on the moon
His was the light in the dark
Tempted the moon to cross the sun
Saying to his people;
“Therefore, listen now to what I have to say: Fifty days from this day, there will be no cloud in the sky. Yet, when the sun has reached its highest point, at that moment will the Great Spirit take it into Her hand and hide it from us. The darkness of night will thereupon cover us and the stars will shine round us. The birds will go to roost and the night creatures will awaken and stir. Then you will know, beyond further doubt, as the white chief Harrison has said, that your prophet has been sent to you from Maneto."
And then
On a shining June 17, 1806...at precisely noon
An eclipse of sun by moon
And people crossed the earth
To follow their brothers and confront those
That would shadow their land and take their light
For it was,in the Battle of the Thames
Tecumseh’s light was stolen
Like a shooting star
Who shines, but for a brief time
The Long Knives Who managed to reach him
Could not reach North any more
He strived to unite - one voice
To the many with no divides
From being halved into a fraction of their power
And now we are in the year oh two,
Those that beat war drums South of the divide
Charge again, to change another once more
To have more for mores sake
To take what is not theirs
That they would take many more lives,
More Air, more Water, more Mother Earth
Drilling her black blood hide
For a ‘way of life’, sake
And then, one must ask
Is a ‘way of life’ that takes another’s
A ‘way of life’?? or perhaps a way of death
Had Tecumseh traveled the four corners
Not gathered the many
To unite and to fight the Americans
Would we be them without a border
Wielding our Long Knife policies
Drafted in the black blood wars
Which says we are US
And will use bully as our M.E. policy
As Tecumseh would say;
“Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me,
Never! Never!"
Tecumseh of the Shawnee
LauraLee K. Harris
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