CHEROKEE PRESENCE

 

From my perch with a mountain view I try to understand

what this site was like when only the Cherokee roamed the land.

I have an affinity for indigenous people…their culture…

the way they looked at life…and living…

How they understood we are all a part of the land

and the value they put on sharing, community and giving.

They understood everything on this Earth is equal…no one portion is greater…

and how the entire universe shares in the immortal perfection of its Creator.

 

The way they lived, the way they worshiped, the unique way they thought

If only we had let them be our guide…

They had so much to teach us…

instead…we callously brushed them all aside.

We threw them off the only land they ever knew….

We were barbarous, merciless and cruel…

We tried to change the essence of who they were….

We took their children and sent them off to boarding school.

Where to their parent’s and these innocent children’s sorrow and surprise,

they were forever changed by they way they were mistreated, abused, and brutalized.

But as I sit in a cabin that sits on what once was Cherokee land….

and rue the way those before us have sinned…

I can still feel the Cherokee presence in the trees….

still hear their messages floating on the wind.

To those who have forgotten, disregard or never listened to their message…

It’s not too late to start…

There is still time to walk tall as the trees

live as strong as the mountains

and keep the warmth of the Sumer sun in our hearts.

We cannot go back and change the mistakes we made in the past

that course of history has run…

but if we heed the messages still clinging to the trees

still floating on the wind…

we can begin make the future …a better place for everyone.

EARLY BIRD

’Tis the early bird that catcheth the worm…

is a proverb that has survived…

since William Camden first wrote those words

back in Sixteen hundred and five.

It’s a proverb that lately in the morning I’ve been concentrating on…

After all…I’m considered an early bird because I’m up before the dawn.

 

But the early birds who greet me in the morning…

who have waited the whole night long

do not greet me, as many others do

with an early morning song…

No, the early birds in this part of the mountain

when to this porch they come…

are not the birds that sing at all…

they are the birds that hum.

Since it’s early and still dark I cannot see them…

and since they do not choose to sing

they make their presence known by the humming of their wings.

They let me know they have arrived…

and by their humming they’ve declared

They’ve come to enjoy the sweet nectar

Deborah has prepared.

It’s a beautiful sound in the early morn

and I don’t care if they don’t know the words to their song

because the more I hear their happy humming

the more I want hum along.

Which makes me want to amend William Camden’s proverb

this is what I think…

From my experience it should also read

’Tis the early bird that catcheth a drink.

And since I am an early bird…

In the morning from what I’ve heard…

’Tis also the early bird in the morning

who catcheth sight of the humming bird.

 

A DREAM

 

August 28, 1963

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.

Martin Luther King Jr. set aside his prepared notes…

his thoroughly planned out theme

and expressed to the entire world watching…

”I have a dream” 

Which became the dream for many of us

who happened to be listening in…

that we judge people on their character

not by the color of their skin

That freedom should ring not for only some in this country

not just for you and me…

but from the mountains of New York, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado

and the hills of Mississippi.

I was 10 years old when Martin spoke about his dream…

a dream many of us hoped to see…

a dream that that remains just a dream

now that I’m 73.

It’s been 63 years since that moment…

when he expressed a dream many of us continue to dream too…

and I will never understand why there are people in this world…

who don’t want our dream to come true.

DID I PICK THE STONE

How many of us have been walking along the shore of a river, a stream or a lake

by ourself or with our partner, our son…our daughter…

and randomly picked up a stone…carried it for a while, took it home

or skipped it across the water.

If, as indigenous people believe, everything on Earth is connected…

every thing…one and all…

then perhaps you picking that particular stone…

wasn’t so random after all.

Perhaps there are time in nature…for reasons we’re not sure why

we feel more connected to the earth, the sea, the sky.

Perhaps there are times we are more attuned when out in nature walking

When we feel more attached to our surroundings..

when we can hear Mother Nature talking. 

Perhaps what we think is a random stone…

actually is not!

What if that stone is telling us 

he or she is tired of staying in one spot…

What if that particular stone wants us to understand….

It feels like going for a ride…or being held within our hand.

And if that stone asks to be skipped across the water…

if we listen…we just might

hear that skipping stone…squeal with delight.

So the next time you pick up a random stone…

remember this indigenous people’s philosophy…

and ask yourself…did I pick this stone…

or was this stone picking me.

 

STORIES

 

 I was standing in an extremely slow moving line at a Spectrum office the other day…

doing my best to wait patiently…

with one older woman in front and to older men behind me.

When we realized we’d be in line for a while

which was causing the older woman some consternation

we decided to pass the time in some friendly conversation.

It turns out the two men were Vietnam vets…one spent 18 months there in 1970,

the other 13 months in 1964.

The stories they told were more about ways they distracted themselves

to take their minds off the atrocities of that war.

While they were trading stories…of a place and time that was not part of my fate…

the older lady ahead of me was constantly complaining about the wait.

I stood there mesmerized at the juxtaposition…

of a lady whining about how the line was moving so slow…

And two men so easily discussing those months 

that, I’m sure, changed their lives…all those years ago.

Well, the older lady finally made it to the counter…and once she was on her way…

realizing my question would take some time…

I told the Vietnam Vets to go ahead of me…and I’ll come back another day.

As I listened to them I kept thinking to myself…I can’t imagine what it’s like in war…

then I thanked them for their stories and their service…before heading out the door.

In the parking lot I was met by that same older lady…the one complaining in the queue…

She said the battery in her Subaru was dead…and she didn’t know what to do.

She said the reason she was impatient (and now crying)…she wanted me to know…

was her 62 year old son died of cancer…just two days ago.

So I hugged this stranger in the parking lot…in the midst of her bad day…

then we found a man with jumper cables…and she was on her way.

As I stood in the parking lot after she was gone…I thought how life is so bizarre 

how we’re all living different stories that forge the people who we are….

A myriad of stories…some happening today…others now long gone.

And how sometimes we’re too quick to judge another person…

when we don’t know which page their story’s on.

A revelation felt in a parking lot after standing in that Spectrum office

in a line that was moving slow….

as I listened to two Veterans tell their stories…now six decades in the past

and felt one older lady’s sadness…that began two days ago.