There Is My People Sleeping

Poem by Marion Sarain Stump

And there is my people sleeping since a long time but aren’t just dreams the old cars without engine parking in front of the house or angry words ordering peace of mind or who steals from you for your good and doesn’t wanna remember what he owes you sometimes I’d like to fall asleep too, close my eyes on everything but I can’t I can’t it’s with terror, sometimes that i hear them calling me but it’s the light skip of a cougar detaching me from the ground to leave me alone with my crazy power till I reach the sun makers and find myself again in a new place he goes away very far away without anybody on his tail teeth of snake, birds’s wings the shaman goes far away gotta be the best at the ball game and hunt something every time i go for a walk put together a few wise words in front of the elder ones all because she smiled at me and her father said he ain’t gonna give her to who’s not a man I heard them talking about her with love in their minds I have seen them start their dances to call her out great names I heard in the dark of the night but a name can’t steal the bear’s child to the homeless man nobody sews his mocassins all he had was a cedar flute who could guess that with that one he’d call her and she’d run to him? now he’s a bear and the little bears of spring call him ‘father’ I had to see her heart to have her had to see his heart to have him with a south horse I came at the scalp dance with two little bones I lost all I had and still I was rich then a cow right on top of the hill and it was all over seven men on the rock upon the house the deadman’s head is laughing at my mistakes lazy flyin’ of crows in the sky brings me away in a returnless run like red leaves carried by the autumn wind with an iron blade I was trying to write on rock hearts hoping to see them laugh hoping to see them cry I was mixing stars and sand in front of him but he couldn’t understand I was keeping the lightning of the thunder in my purse just in front of him but he couldn’t understand and I had been killed a thousand times right at his feet but he hadn’t understood little traces in my mind brought me back where I was born and there wasn’t any explanation just my back shook at the crying of my dying mother.