To a Native Teenager
You are unhappy because
you live far from the city
that promises everything and
you think yourself to be poor
because you live among your people.
But when you live like
a person of city breeding
you will not hear the plants say:
eat off me,
nor will you take
from the animals because of hunger.
The ground will be so hard
that you will want to run
from place to place, and
when you have gone too far
there will be no moss to rest on,
nor will your back find
a tree to lean against.
Your thirsty throat
will long to savor water
from the cup of your hand;
instead the liquid that lives in a bottle
will burn your tongue,
soften your mind,
and make your heart ache
for the sweetness of spring water.
Tears will keep your eyes moist
because a thousand small suns
that never come nor go
flicker everywhere.
The wind will not carry
messages from land to land,
and the odor of countless machines
will press on your chest
like the smell of a thousand angry skunks.
You will look at the sky
to pray for soft rain;
instead you will find
above the tree tops
lives another city
that stands between you
and the guidance of stars,
and you will wonder where city people
keep their dead.
A longing will rise in your heart
for the days of your boyhood, and
your fingers will grip the sacred tooth
you hid in your coat pocket.
But the train that carried you into
the city never brought the spirit along
that guides lost hunters through the woods.
Again and again your eyes will try to see
the evening dripping off the sun
like wild honey and your nostrils
will quiver for the scent of water
that tumbled through the canyons
of your childhood.
You’ll stand at a corner
amidst the noise
and bow your head in despair
because you are humbled
by the desire to touch
your father’s canoe
that he carved when you were born.
Wherever you look
there is nothing your eyes know,
and when weakness settles into your legs
you will recognize your brother
by the shadow his hunched body casts
in the corner of a street,
in a city where people walk
without seeing the tears
in each other’s eyes.
Chief Dan George
Next To: INDIAN 23RD. PSALM
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