Cherokee Jew

Centuries have passed    
since we were discovered      
  my ancestors extending      
  offerings of smoke      
    to strangers in our midst      
     
Ascending to the realm      
of Great Spirit, tattooed ringlets:      
 inked acceptance and peace      
 forged brotherhood between us      
     
Earth was allocated, homesteads built      
 each tribe to teach and learn:      
   hunt for shelter, clothes      
   grind maize for bread      
   weave blankets for warmth      
        
What we received in return      
 were plumes of ash and blood;      
 indigenous small-poxed with disease      
    burial grounds engorged      
     
Buffalo canvased lifelessly      
  across bloody plains;      
Their carcasses lay rotting      
   in soiled waves of heat      
     
Our children were transformed      
  to a uniformed English tongue      
  our women raped and used      
   branded as Indian Squaws      
        
We carved a trail of tears      
  wherever footsteps tread      
Our fallen sick and aged      
   succumbed to elements      
        
By rivers we freely died;      
  up mountains,  across plains      
displaced survivors settling      
  on designated plots of land      
     
Centuries have passed      
  still nothing has changed;      
white man's avarice spreads      
  in holy Christianity's name      
     
Our reservations plundered      
  by swollen corporate greed;      
   billows of the black snake      
   suffocate our breath;      
     
   its oily hatchlings spread      
   infecting rivers and lakes      
   strangling all life      
    that dare lives in its path      
        
Still, we do not attack      
  no blood is on our hands      
our hearts and minds awaiting      
   an inevitable return        
     
Because somehow we believe      
  full circles come round, as the Jews       
  of holocaust, our tribal ways survived      
     
Did they not     
.