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!)