Art "Morning Tears"
By John Guthrie

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Cherokee Rose
By La Belle Rouge

In Honor Of My Cherokee Ancestors


When the wind moans in the tall pines
and rushes like a lost spirit through hollows
you can hear their voices, the ancient ones
in a language long forgotten, unspoken
good years recorded only in souls and books
the joys of freedom and brotherhood
but unspeakable the sorrows of later years
when the people like cattle were herded
far from valleys of their blue mountains
down a torturous trail of too many tears

Our young ones hungered and gray ones
died along the path, too weary to go on
with trust forsaken, hearts too broken
to force themselves to believe again
in pale ones who broke every promise
betrayed each treaty they had signed
they took away our land, our tongue
our faith, the worship of our god,
our customs, even our children’s names
they thought to make us like them
but always thought us less than them

Savages they called us, ignorant, evil
and yet, who invaded our peaceful place
and how many among them would not fight
for their land, their women and young?
which of them would so peacefully bow
beneath the yoke of injustice and deceit?
along the path where death overtook us
there blooms forevermore a reminder
the Cherokee Rose, sprung from the ground
where bitter tears and scarlet blood
of the suffering red man fell like rain
pure white her blooms and deep her roots
amid wasteland and barren rocks she grows
for what the Great Spirit plants will live on
in wastelands and broken hearts forever

5/12/2008 La Belle Rouge

“Poetry, Soul Whispers”

Music "Lakota"