Peyote Howl

Elders warn
of premonition,
prophecy through
yellow almond-shaped
eyes and arctic white,

in a tent
along my people's
trapline, smoke of peyote
sent to the sky spirit, in the
North,

the reindeer
hear the night
howls, in the West
kachinas dance, the
medicine bundle of holy
objects taken out,

there is a
fire in the Dakotas,
the Rosebud Reservation
answers the peyote howl warning
of a potential threat, and I, as a survivor
wait for the intervention to assist me...I listen
to the sky,

Buffalo Calf Woman
says, "Remember in me
there is Four ages. I am
leaving, but I will look back
on your people every age, and
in the end, I will return"...

I...

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist