Songs For The Fallen Warriors
Into the land they have fallen
For what they believed
And stood for
But now stand no more
Into the land they fell
Where they once stood
And for What
They stood
Their beliefs remain in our hearts
For it is now
That it stays
And lives
In ways
It is in their songs
There is no border between us
And they are heard
Their Earth is red
As is ours
And we hear them
Stretched into the sky
Not dead, just on the other side
The river has fish
The wind, air
They are inside of what is all around
And we know they are there
The Earth
Keeps speaking and singing
And we believe what she says
Is the truth
For it’s heard in our spirits
And she says it so clearly
That it can’t be misconstrued
For she’s spoken it into our hearts
And she’s sung it in our spirits
Like the warriors who went before
Who knew her voice before we knew our own
Laying in our cribs,
We heard her birds chirping,
Leaves rustling, winds blowing,
Rains soaking
Well before we heard our own words
It is for her songs and her words
And her life that they fought
For they knew the ones taking her
Did not honour her or any life
So they’d sing her songs
And drummed her beat
And smudged her sweet
Lay down tobacco and gave thanks
Because their respect was so complete
They fought
Not to lose her
And fell down
Losing their lives to her
But now a part of her
She keeps them
In all her spirit places of honour
In her raindrops in her skin
In her shade of her trees
In her wind through her leaves
In her sunlight on her rocks
In her sound of waters slapping
In the wings of birds clapping
In all her places felt and heard and seen
She opened all her Spirit Doorways
In all her directions
East + South + West + North
Up + Down
For the heart does not die
It passes on and begins anew
And carries on, gets settled and goes home
It continues
In a touch, in a view,
In a feeling, in a smell
In a sound, in a taste on the tongue
All that is given from Mother Earth
Is in the heart balanced by the mind
And that is what they knew
They were brought in tight by Tecumseh
In a jagged shape of different tribes
In one place but from many
One people of countless
One song altogether
In Prophet’s Town
They fell together as one
Like the white sun at the end of a red day
Leaving its red grasp to live on in the sky
A red legacy pounding like the drum
Just 19 decades ago today
In the beat of our hearts
Remains young
And the ones who wanted to take it
Stay indifferent and apart
From the honour that we keep for Tecumseh
In the circle that we breath on Mother Earth
Fallen Warriors
For this legacy
For Canada
We say - Miigwech
LauraLee K. Harris
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