Pine Ridge, September 1975

You can break into song
for Sitting Bull, Hoka Hey!,
of visions at Greasy Grass,
or how he was murdered
because of the Ghost Dance.
You can write poems
for Crazy Horse, victim of
bayonets and a bad translator.
Or take a walk down the
Trail of Broken Treaties, recounting
the white lies for Red Cloud.
But don’t speak of a city on the hill
until you bury the heart of justice
in South Dakota snow.
Hold back ruler and scales.
You cannot use them to measure
these forgotten people, while
Leonard Peltier, number 89637 –132,
dances a Sun Dance from his cell.