February 15, 1999

Contents:

Vision Song of Eternal Evening ...by [email protected]
An Ioway Poem- (Algonquian) ...submitted by [email protected]
Buffalo Games ...submitted by [email protected]
Hold My Hand ...by [email protected]

...by [email protected]

See the words flow down the secret mountain
living in your secret heart,
floating in your secret waters...words they are
the food of living, loving, caring;
silver flashing fish, carrying rainbows,
now lost in the minnow depths
of regions never before found alive.

See the shadow pass of the past
across the forest in your mind...
faces with painted grief,
eyes gone wild, gone
in the dried leaves of other times.
Tears out of sight now, but painful nonetheless.

Deerskin covered feet run across ladders of lies
Above the leaf covered soil waiting for sounds
Of death to be heard by ones yet to be borne
On winds reserved for the Eagle, Hawk, buzzard.
Same old feast, in the name of God, sacred.

Questions to be sagely asked, answers to be returned
To the ground where they grew,
Drew breath, learned lessons sad crusted with lies.
Ladders of lies, salted with sinful breaths,
Sanded with ancient drift known for so long.

Ancient lines on ancient faces encasing eyes
Filled with too much hope vain kept leaking, 
dead in shame, pouring onto the sacred grounds, ravines, 
hills folded toward the river shores,
pathways to the evening of eternal rest.
That's why we are here.
That's why we disappear in a chant,
In the blink of an eyelid,
The faces are changed.

No smile to lift the Sun over the places
Where we rest beyond the veil,
In temperament for being fools.
Fools fooled fully for flat folly.
At the borderline we should never have 
allowed to be crossed, 
nor  nor others to claim as their own
in exchange for our lives.

Copyright 1999 Leglaion Templeton, Author - All Rights Reserved.

...submitted by [email protected]

This is an old Ioway (Baxoje) poem.   Shining Eagle  (Baxoje)

We are the stars which sing,
We sing with our light;
We are the birds of fire,
We fly over the sky.

Our light is a voice,
We make a road for the spirits,
For the spirits to pass over.

Among us are three hunters,
Who chase a bear.
There never was a time
When they were not hunting.

We look down on the mountains,
This, is the song of the stars......

...submitted by [email protected]

During the Iditarod, the dogsled race across Alaska, a rookie driver came upon a musher who had stopped his team and was gazing down a hill with rapt attention.

The rookie driver stopped to see what the other man found so absorbing. We were looking down on a frozen lake - one of the Farewell Lakes. But it wasn't the lake that held his interest. Below and to the right, a group of four buffalo were standing on the shore. Two of them were in the grass at the edge and the other two were out on the ice.

"Somebody told me that there was a herd of buffalo here, but I hadn't expected to see them along the trail," he said.

"Yes," I told the other musher. "Buffalo. I know. They told us..."

"No - watch."

I turned back, thinking frankly that he was around the bend. So it was buffalo - so what? Then I saw what he meant. The surface of the lake was bare of snow and the buffalo out on the ice were having a rough time of it trying to stand.

One of the buffalo on the shore backed away from the lake, up the sloping side of the ridge, pawed the ground a couple of times and ran full bore for the lake. Just as he hit the edge of the ice, his tail went straight up in the air. He spread his front feet apart, stiffened his legs and slid away from shore, spinning around in a circle as he flew across the ice. When he slowed to a stop he bellowed, a kind of "Gwaaa" sound, then began making his tortuous way back to the shoreline.

While he was doing this, the fourth buffalo came shooting out on the ice, also tail up, slid farther than the last, made a louder noise, and started back slipping and falling. I couldn't believe it and blinked rapidly several times, thinking I was hallucinating.

"No - it's real," he laughed. "I was passing when I heard the bellow and came up to check it out. I've been here an hour, maybe a little more. They've been doing this the whole time. Great, isn't it?"

We lay there for another half-hour watching them play. The object seemed to be who could slide the farthest, and each of them tried several times, tails up, happy bellows echoing on the far shore of the lake as they slid across the ice.

Buffalo Games....who would have thought it could happen?

"All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it."

  Samuel Butler
AHO MI TAKAYE OYACIN
AMEN TO ALL MY RELATIONS
ALL THINGS WITH LIFE!

...by [email protected]

Hold my hand in the morning, when
all is quiet and you can hear the music
of my heart singing our song, our words,
natural melodies like those of Robins
and Red Birds, words that ignore time
and hurl us into the midst of gentle feelings 
of love, cool love, love relaxed like early 
morning leaves blowing in the wind. 

Hold my hand at noon when sun is blazing,
when no shade can hide our scorching love,
when feeling is at its greatest height, 
when all stands naked and revealed in its 
dazzling light. And though the world may 
not understand it, they will feel our heat as 
we pass by; and though they think it is the 
sun, we shall know it is our hearts, our love. 

Hold my hand at night when sun no longer
lights the path but love shines through and
brightens up the night. For in that hour when 
eyes cannot see through lonely space, we shall 
see it all, and feel it all from inside glowing 
hearts made pure from loving. Reach into the 
dark and velvet haze and touch my hand that we 
may be one flesh, one love, not fooled by eyes 
drenched in blinding colors of confusion and 
doubt and need to prove the mystery. 

Hold my hand in yours and walk with me out-
side of time and flesh and limitation, where
death no longer cuts away the dream; where
time no longer tarnishes the moment; where
gravity must cease and all things drift along
the weightless current outside of destiny
where love is free to be, and we are free to
be in love forever.