The black snake
A haunting legend
Has emerged
Sadistically slithering
Through acrid mist
Forging for souls
Injecting the ground
Pillaging soil
Its venom
Poisoning ancestors
Singeing their roots
Dissipating existence
Into a cloud of sulfur
Acid rain dissolves
Faces of stone
Boiling artifacts
Disintegrating history
Of our founders
Polluting the atmosphere
With tense, sulfuric fear
Radiating the sky
As helpless cries
Flare up the night.
Blistering
Searing
Sweltering
Scorching
Scathing the tribe
As the stroke
Of a pen
Wages war
Upon their lives.
What have we done
To her?
What have we done
To our brothers and sisters?
Segregated and sterilized
Pillaged and plundered
Raped and severed
Beat them and shot them
Left them to die
As Mother Earth cried.
I hear a curdling sound
Reverberating deep
underground
“Le ma unkitha makhoche,” (This is our land)
“Na un kičhíŋ he’…” (and we want it)
“Wana,” (Now)
“Wana…” (Now…)
“WANA!” (NOW!)
“Key kta yo!” (Wake up!)
“Key kta po!” (All of you wake up!)
“Da makota,” (I am Dakota.)
“O ma key o.” (Help me.)
“O ma key yah nah!” (Please help me!)
