Pigmas 2022-23 25 December

[brynmawr1]

Sand Creek Christmas

Hanukkah sounds like a Cheyenne chant,
and Christmas sounds like a massacre
to these waischu ears so carefully attuned
to the blood and darkness of long ago years
so I’ll let Black Kettle sing a song of mourning:

“Although wrongs have been done me
I live in hopes.
I have not got two hearts.
I once thought I was the only man
that persevered to be the friend of the white man,
but since they have come
cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else,
it is hard for me to believe the white man anymore.”

Two centuries too late
we light our candles and our trees
to show the way for our songs of peace and goodwill
while Black Kettle’s village still smolders.
I can smell the smoke
I can see the mutilated dead.

This is not Hanukkah, this is not Christmas,
it’s merely history, I guess,
but it floats before me when I see those words
when I hear our carols of forgetfulness
drift across the snow covered remains
where Black Kettle blew his bugle in vain.

Well done.

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