I am standing outside
in Minnesota
ghost wind recalling
names in winter mist
The road smells
of dogs two days dead
White photographers talk in
the house of mainstream
media
I can’ t articulate
the agony of Eagle Singer’ s
children to them.
The boy painted himself white and ran into the darkness.
We let the words “he may be dead, bury him,”
bury him.
We took his clothes to the rummage sale
in the basement of the mission
We put his photographs and drawings
in a birdcage and covered it with a starquilt.
For four nights voices carried clear to the river.
After winter so many storms moved in
strangers came among us
They danced
They shoveled in the shadows of trees
Then, somehow we all felt
all of us were of this one boy.
