for T.C. Cannon, a brother of poetry and song

We were wild then,
As we emerged from bloody history
Into the white clothes of pious religion and rules.
Then sent off to Indian school to learn how to forget
Our mothers, fathers, the grandparents who loved and love us.
We were still in the embrace of the God of the plains,
Horses, of where sky and earth meet—
Every day was a praise song, every word or act had import
Into the meaning of why we are here as spirits
Dressed in colored earth.

We were wild then,
They said, because we spoke a different language
And would not give over our spirits to them.
And though they tried, they could not ever remake us
No matter how hard they drilled and forced us.
We died over an over again in those stiff desks,
As our hearts walked home.
We sat on the fire escapes outside our dorm rooms on cold winter nights
And made plans to escape history.

Some of us did not make it.
We carried their bodies far away
From the cities and set their spirits free.
This moment is for them—gives them nourishment
Of our love to keep moving toward home.

We were wild then.
I will always remember that night far south
Of town where we sat at the bar after our escape.
You had gone to war and had become a painter, poet and singer.
I was poet, mother and I was learning how to sing.
We talked history, heartache, the blues, and what it means
To be an artists with nothing to lose, because we lost everything,
here, at the edge of America.


    
                                                                                                               T.C. Cannon