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Letter to a Relative
By Ayodele Nzinga
Leonard Peltier
You
sent a letter to your relatives
on
your 63rd birthday
I
heard your missive
and
became your relative.
We are
joined by our tears,
the
breath of Crazy Horse,
and
the war cries of Ann Nzinga.
We are
of the blood of
indigenous warriors
soldiering unto now
locked
in rebellion, survival, and the cages
the
pilgrims have brought to the new land.
We are
the spirit of this suffering land,
the
hands of the many indigenous
whose
lands have been
discovered, repopulated,
drug
into a sick modernity, screaming
for
the preservation of traditions lost
to
concrete, Mac Donald's, and plastic.
They
have caged you my brother,
for
over 30 of your 63 summers,
for
being the breath of Crazy Horse.
I cry
out to you in the name of Ann Nzinga
Never
Give Up.
We are
all in cages.
They
came for you
none
of us are safe
the
wolf whistles
as he
moves in stealth
among
blind sheep.
Removed from the earth, encased in stucco
linoleum, cultivated greed, chained by
created need, we prescribe our own demise.
The
blade of grass you wished to be
(so
like water you could flow free)
would
find mother earth much changed.
It
would tell you of our common plight;
the
mournful song the water sings,
the
way the sun reflects
the
waste of those who use war
as a
ruse for power and money.
Chess
games played
with
human beings
reveal
wage slaves,
a new
company store,
diseased governments,
ethnic
cleansing,
battles against a
criminalized poor
and
the forever wars.
The
trees would whisper to you
of
depleted uranium,
acid
rain, how
the
earth answers;
in
cyclone
and
hurricane .
All of
us
at the
mercy
of the
insane.
My
brother,
I say
all and
nothing has changed.
Destiny is calling here.
All
any of us have
is the
breath of Crazy Horse
the
cries of Ann Nzinga.
I
stand with you until
you
stand in the sun again
and we
shall
Never
Give Up.
Know
you are free
in the
hearts of those who
can
hear Crazy Horse and
Nzinga
chanting in the night
Never
Give Up.
Pray
for us
and
the blades of grass.
Never Give Up
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