JOHN TRUDELL ~

One Time


One time
I was visiting
with my relatives
the clouds, the mountains,
the sky, the trees
My relatives touched
My spirit
nudged it lovingly

Listen to us
Impatient one
We are forever
You must remember
the gentleness
of time

You are struggling
to be
who you are
You say you want
to learn
the old ways
struggling to learn
when
all you must do
is remember

Remember the people
Remember sky and Earth
Remember the people
have always struggled
to live
in harmony
in peace

Struggle against selfishness
and weakness
So the people
May live
As Nations

The old ways are hard
The people have always
had to work
together

Remember
Impatient one
Remember
and live
Do not be afraid
of truth
Respect
Discipline
Share your life
So the people
May live

Honor sky
and earth
Honor yourself
Honor your relations

Remember Impatient one
the gentleness
of time
So the People
May live.





Remember the happy time
when being together
is Solace
The pure happiness
of loving and laughing
Exploring sensations creating relief
in troubling times.

Remember the happy time
when all we have to do
is live
with each other
to be a shelter
in the face of the greed

Remember the happy time
how we use our joy as strength
Our tears washing away the bad
how just being is our alliance
The lessons we teach ourselves
Are the remembrances we carry

Remember the happy time
that is something we never lose
So
We must not throw it away
Or
Allow the abusers of life
to take it away

Remember the happy time
it is a gift to us. . .





The Exploiters


do not let them get to you
we are here there is a reason
reason for our own minds
reason for respect
reason for a natural world
reason for resistance
reason we are more
than they can control
their constant military
economic attack assaulting
the balance in life
inflation racism sexism egotism
new clear insecurities only
battalions of their armies
ravishing our universe
as their machines
rage against earth
industrial war
their mechanical money view
is limited to them

do not let them get to you
we are connected to each other
when we understand
their way of doing things
is unnatural
and
only natural things last





night time
when the sun rests
the clouds seem
no more than shadows
of themselves

night life
earth absorbing
moon and stars
universal energies
joining us
to each other
in
the constant creation
destiny
charging the flow
we are current
to forever





Living in Reality


Calling us red indians
we have been the colors
of a chameleons back
Changing with time
Altering the larger pattern
Surviving genocide
because we have to

Living in Reality
we are targets
of your unfairness
With Warriors for targets
You Create
Your own destruction

This is how we
bring you down
target by target
You wound yourself
Using your greed
We watch
Your spirit fade

Living in Reality
We can endure
                        Your cages
                        Your bullets
                        Your lies
                        Your confusion


We know
You have destroyed
            Your Peace
Living in Reality
You only exist.




_______________

JOHN TRUDELL
Living in Reality
(songs called poems)
Society of the People, 1982

Author's first book, published in the wake of the suspicious house fire on the Shoshone Paiute reservation in Nevada that claimed his wife, their three children, and his mother-in-law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trudell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Manning