With Love to Those Who Stand at Standing Rock

With Love to Those Who Stand at Standing Rock

We put our ears to the ground
and feel hear know the
hoofbeats of the buffalo
in whose hearts our act
ignites. In whose cells our
act of resistance becomes
a call to run to join to stand.

We spot them first on the
horizon the gold line between
earth and sky and they
kick up the dust, remind us to
lift our heads and stand.
We call to them.
Our cries rise above the heads
of helmeted men who
wield weapons of steel
and by their presence alone
whisper the hurting words.
Nothing has changed. You
Have not been heard.

We protect. We stand.
There is violence against us.
There is a history unraveling
inside of our rib cages, a
familiar narrative that seemed
To sleep and now. Now.
It breathes us, sings us,
grows us into a single entity,
washes over us like the
water we protect. The drumbeat
and the heartbeat coincide,
meld into a single
rhythm. It sends ripples out
from this our center,
touches every corner of the
world that fans out from
beneath our feet. Enters the
collective consciousness, not
only indigenous. Human. They
begin to remember
their human-ness. All connect and
rise. It is a familiar sound, a
remembrance that lives now
that we sing it. Now
that our feet stamp the beat
of our resistance our wholeness our
refusal to become brutal. Our
refusal to be reduced to violent
action. Our knowing—expanded
to show us show them show the world
what we are. We are divine we are
light we are love—after all.

The buffalo make a ring around us
send up the signal that Spirit is
here near aware attuned.
We raise our fists in the air
clap our hands to our mouths our
hearts our heads we are
one after all we are
One.