November 2016
Born and bred in Chicago, I now live in sunny South Florida with my wife of 51 years Sheila, where we spend considerable time spoiling our four grandchildren. At age 19 I received a University of Colorado Poetry Prize. After some 50 years in the field of communications with recognitions including a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America, I resumed my creative pursuits. A finalist and recipient of the 28th Annual 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards, my work appears internationally in numerous publications, my photography will be found in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge" artist and guest editor, and my full length work Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words (Scarlet Leaf Publishing) is forthcoming in early 2017.
Indigenous
(with selections adapted from The Gospel of the Redman, compiled by Ernest Thompson Seton)
No one owns the land
it all reverts to the tribe
no one owns the woods
of the forests, or the waters
of the rivers, this is the
way of the native Americans
wanzi oyate - one nation
pick no more berries than needed
avoid injuring anything which bears fruit
kill no more game than your camp requires
when you build a fire use only the fuel
you must and before moving on
extinguish the flame with care.
This is the way of the native Americans
wanzi oyate - one nation
it is at no time right to set
the forest afire, that is a lasting
calamity to all who dwell there,
the forest never recovers of
itself from such damage
let not cold, hunger, pain, or fear
of the very jaws of death itself
prevent you from doing a good deed.
This is the way of the native Americans
wanzi oyate - one nation
no one owns the soil of the earth
that soil is not ordinary soil—it is
the dust of the blood, the flesh,
the bones of ancestors
the native Americans
bled and died to keep;
the land is their blood,
their dead, it is consecrated.
The eagle that sees afar sits in
the summit of the tree to watch
to the North and the South
and the East and the West
the eagle will scream and give
the alarm and come to the
front—wanzi oyate.
Selections adapted from The Gospel of the Redman used by permission, World Wisdom, Inc.
Author's Note: The protest taking place regarding the Dakota Access pipeline has so many applicable ramifications to our times. The matter of what constitutes the collective good, the need for a reawakening of a sense of unity in this country, not to mention environmental issues all warrant our appreciation of the Native American perspective as exemplified in their effort, in consort with others like minded, to “listen to the land.” Yes jobs are at stake, and economic issues; it should be noted, it is the path this pipeline has chosen to take, as much as the pipeline itself that is an issue. I have long greatly respected Native American values, as enunciated in one of my prized personal possessions an early copy of The Gospel of the Redman given to me as a gift over fifty years ago by my lifelong friend James Dunham, Native American expert, now Special Projects Director for the Booth Western Art Museum. I thought it was only fitting to try to express some of the fundamental thinking that surely must inform the action of those “spearheading” this extraordinary initiative. I strongly felt I needed to "spread the word" yet I felt as strongly that I could not presume to speak for the Native Americans involved, so I went to a classic source for their own words which I adapted to my purposes. Shortly after my writing this piece, President Obama ordered work to stop on a section of pipeline in contention pending further environmental studies, and shortly after that the courts halted construction on another section of the Dakota Access pipeline. These are major victories for the protest movement and further substantiates the merit of protest efforts.
News source reference— https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/09/20/this-is-why-environmentalists-are-targeting-energy-pipelines-like-the-north-dakota-project/
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©2016 Howard Richard Debs