Ghost Dance
Two hundred seventy
Ghost Dancers died dreaming
That humanity would drown
In a flood of White sins.
Then the renewed earth
Would reclaim city and town,
Leaving only Ghost Dancers
And those who lived by nature’ s laws.
History books say the threat is gone.
The Ghost Dance died with the ancestors —
Wovoka and his sacred dream
Were destroyed.
Each time it rains,
I go out to the sidewalk,
Where the tree roots
Have broken the concrete
Listening to the water’ s whispering: