The TV shows a preview
of a program on US history
and it closes with a quick shot
of an Indian (no I will not call him
a Native American and
I will not call him Indigenous and
he is not to be called NDN)
running toward
the screen with a feather upright
on his braided head and
something like a bone breastplate
on his bronze body and something
like a hatchet in his hand and
I shake my close shorn head
at a History 250 series on Fox and
I comb my beard with my fingers
I wish I could spell out for you
the shock that tingles and
bolts down my arm and into
my heart and then comes back up
through my arm and out into
the world and how it calls out
again again and again for shame
again again and again for fear
again again and again for something
beyond anger into the formless maw
of the years between the visualization of
the man running and
the spirit running from it
through the television
into the myth that someone (no NDN
no Indigenous no Native American)
ever created

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T