Souls Taken Away (Poem)
April
1, 2014
From the late eighteen hundreds to nineteen
ninety-six
Through the dark n’ cruel days of
colonization
Children removed from their families and
tribes
And their delicate souls torn and broken.
Countless pass through the hell of
assimilation
Where four thousand angels perished for
naught
In the so called schools of learning
imprisoned
Where the scripture is twisted and justice is
wronged
In the name of belief that some are superior
The system guarded their being and thought
By whipping their tongues and crippling their
spirit
To save the “soul of the savage,” and civilize
While there in the pews of the cathedrals of
love
Compassion and mercy is sung to the heavens
Drowning the wailing that the horrors inflicted
Perverting the meaning faith.
The river of tears flow with rage until now
And thousands of questions haunt us to
remember
When will these pestering wounds ever heal?
Wounds that the present and the future will
shoulder.
And so pray to the Great Spirit I do
That the dead rise up with a cry and renew
Thru the prairies and valleys far as the
eagle can fly
Until the time when the river of tears do run
dry
Can a song or a poem heal the wounds of the
past?
Can a melody find the graves of the missing?
Will the ancient ways be restored by my
singing?
In the land where the elders and the mothers
are weeping
(for the souls that were taken away)
Can the hope that was taken still be
returned?
Will the prayers and footsteps in the land be
recovered?
Can the future t’was buried still be
retrieved?
The collective soul hurtin’ and burdened by
past
The abuse and mistreatment like nightmares
come back
This historic pain weighs so heavy like
syndrome
And in a bottle of liquor the future is
drowned
But only the truth can set history straight
And true apologies can start fixing the ruins
While sincerity’s needed to break walls of
mistrust
Hoping those who were taken can finally rest
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