Land of the Red Man 2014-33

I can remember watching a TV commercial and seeing an Indian sitting on a horse and looking at a valley, down below. What I don’t remember is what he was looking at, but do recall his not saying anything, just the commentator talking about ecology or related to that subject. Then the camera zoomed in at the end when the message of how we are destroying the land and then the face of the Indian came up close. A tear was rolling down his craggy lined face and he turned the horse ands rode away. It was the telling of the story without anything being said by the Indian.

Land of the Red Man 2014-33

The red man looked down from astride a painted pinto,

Seeing the progress of the white man in his land.

His people no longer the proud, free to roam at will,

The talks of his father’s father, ringing in his ears,

Of a life so different than now.

 

Drum beats of the past telling of living times,

Victories of the hunt, the land open and for all.

Spoiled sky and poisoned waters now,

A legacy of the new owners conquest.

Terror, disease and horrors abound;

Self inflicted by those now in control.

 

They called his people the savages, needed to be conquered,

With a holocaust of his people occurring from shore to shore.

He turned his stead, his back, his pride,

And  headed to the pen they left for him.

DDB