Go To The Mountains (Karena Series)

by Amber "V" Moonstone

11/18/09

Restless sleep with dreams of her father,
Karena awoke to the sound of the crow
She gathered her coverlet around herself
and walked into the early sunrise light

She looked toward the mountains,
and her dream came back to her,
Her father was standing on the rocks
below the mountain pass

She was carelessly running toward him,
not thinking and fell upon one of the rocks
she was a child at that moment
adoring her father's image.

He was a magnificent chief
of the Lenape Tribe.

She remembered that day
as if it was just, yesterday.
She remembered the way
her mother made clay pots

She would cook and store things
in them with a proud heart.
Karena was allowed to decorate
the pots with the quills from the porcupine.

Those days were the happiest days
of her life.  Then the white man came
and forced her tribe to move toward
the west, (Oklahoma) and Karena
chose to stay near the ocean with Tumas.

It was only a matter of 9 full moons,
and news of her father's death
crushed her heart.
She never saw him again.

He has visited her in her dreams,
and in this particular dream
he urged her to "Go To The Mountains"
She must obey his command.

Karena watched the sun rise,
and sighed with the knowledge
that she must move her family
one more time.

Karena, Eagle Medicine Woman
December, 1610