Friday, February 21, 2014

Winter Prayer Ground

I said a prayer to
ghost of Appalachian Shawnee,
entered ritual cleansing waters,
not Jeffersonian springs,

what would my ancestors say?

that I bowed to nature,
humbly, naked,
that I stood in the cold?

that I am a disgrace to whiteness?

we don't ask,
we take
they'd say,

it's the only way,
they'd say,

to take,
not just the spring
or the land, or the idea,
but the bodies
it cleansed.

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