Category: Poetry

Thanks to the Rude Pundit for this.

From Black Elk Speaks:

Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have been always, and before you no one has been.
There is no other one to pray to but you.
You yourself, everything that you see, everything has been made by you.
The star nations all over the universe you have finished.
The four quarters of the earth you have finished.
The day, and in that day, everything you have finished.

Grandfather, Great Spirit, lean close to the earth that you may hear the voice I send.
You towards where the sun goes down, behold me; Thunder Beings, behold me!
You where the White Giant lives in power, behold me!
You where the sun shines continually, whence come the day-break star and the day, behold me!
You where the summer lives, behold me! You in the depths of the heavens, an eagle of power, behold!

And you, Mother Earth, the only Mother, you who have shown mercy to your children!
Hear me, four quarters of the world, a relative I am!
Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is!
Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.

Great Spirit, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, all over the earth the faces of living things are all alike.
With tenderness have these come up out of the ground.
Look upon these faces of children without number and with children in their arms, that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.

This is my prayer; hear me! The voice I have sent is weak, yet with earnestness I have sent it.

Hear me!

It is finished. Hetchetu aloh!

Now, my friend, let us smoke together so that there may be only good between us.

For Morgan…

“Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep
He hath awakened from the dream of life
‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife
Invulnerable nothings. -We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments. – Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!”