Passing the memories down

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Passing the memories down… KEYWORDS: native american poem, native american nature poem native american poetry native poetry Martha Moongazer Beard

Faintly in the morning hush,

I smell the scent of sweet sage brush,

Envoking memories of my mountain home

As on this flat land I now roam.I remember well the smell of pine

From the home I was forced to leave behind,

My feet now walk on barren dirt

Where scorpions sting and cactus spine hurt.

Yet I recall the soft, damp grass

From that long ago place of the past,

Birds and flowers were everywhere,

And my people lived without a care.

I gaze on mesa long and dark

I work the land, yet it remains stark.

I have canyons not mountains in this new place–

They wanted to distroy us without a trace.

White men lied and forced us here,

Leaving behind the bear and deer,

But they did not kill the Indian race,

The wind still blows on my red face.

I was relocated to the west,

But I do not give up, I try my best.

Passing memories down so the young will learn,

Praying one day our Nations will return.

Martha Moongazer Beard
December 31, 2004