another poem

Dakotah

She writes in lieu of sleep and walks in dreams
Aching hearts and bleeding bones
the prophets of Dakota soil

When will you bleed?
When will you dream?

Sorrow dies a lonely death on barbed wire fences
Meadowlark prophets sing lonely sagebrush songs
you thought only coyotes sang those songs.

I too am a poet
like my mother
like my father
like my aunts and uncles

We are all the children of Dakota soil
We are all the grain, the product of sweat and tears
We are all poets
We all grow sorrow