Report To Crazy Horse

All the Sioux were defeated. Our clan

got poor, but a few got richer.

They fought two wars. I did not

take part. No one remembers your vision

or even your real name. Now

the children go to town and like

loud music. I married a Christian.

Crazy Horse, it is not fair

to hide a new vision from you.

In our schools we are learning

to take aim when we talk, and we have

found out our enemies. They shift when

words do; they even change and hide

in every person. A teacher here says

hurt or scorned people are places

where real enemies hide. He says

we should not hurt or scorn anyone,

but help them. And I will tell you

in a brave way, the way Crazy Horse

talked: that teacher is right.

I will tell you a strange thing:

at the rodeo, close to the grandstand,

I saw a farm lady scared by a blown

piece of paper; and at that place

horses and policemen were no longer

frightening, but suffering faces were,

and the hunched-over backs of the old.

Crazy Horse, tell me if I am right:

these are the things we thought we were

doing something about.

In your life you saw many strange things,

and I will tell you another: now I salute

the white man's flag. But when I salute

I hold my hand alertly on the heartbeat

and remember all of us and how we depend

on a steady pulse together. There are those

who salute because they fear other flags

or mean to use ours to chase them:

I must not allow my part of saluting

to mean this. All of our promises,

our generous sayings to each other, our

honorable intentions—those I affirm

when I salute. At these times it is like

shutting my eyes and joining a religious

colony at prayer in the gray dawn

in the deep aisles of a church.

Now I have told you about new times.

Yes, I know others will report

different things. They have been caught

by weak ways. I tell you straight

the way it is now, and it is our way,

the way we were trying to find.

The chokecherries along our valley

still bear a bright fruit. There is good

pottery clay north of here. I remember

our old places. When I pass the Musselshell

I run my hand along those old grooves in the rock.