Giving Thanks (Remembrance)

 

Let us give thanks

For our new friends

And to their welcoming

Spirit upon our arrival

 

We owe much gratitude

For they nursed our sick

Taught us to harvest

From sacred ground

Hunt for daily sustenance

And show reverence

For our worthy prey

 

These peaceful warriors

With pride and poise

A primitive people

The earth and it’s creatures

Held high in spiritual regard

 

This feast of gratitude

So shallow and empty

Now knowing the devastation

That was to unfold

 

Was this a celebration,

Or something different?

Perhaps a case of

“Keeping the friends close,

But the enemies closer”.

 

Are we not entitled

To claim this new land

For our very own?

 

So vast and glorious

Yet there cannot be

Room for both cultures

To peacefully coexist

 

The conflict of the natives

Crude, uneducated savages

Against the pilgrimage of

The colonies upper class

 

False promises are made

Evil underhandedness inflicted

Upon an unsuspecting race.

Peaceful and Warrior tribes alike

Fall victim to the influence

Of military might from the East

 

Uprising becomes the downfall

Of so many innocent peoples

“This land is your land,

This land is my land”

So long as you leave it to us

And go peacefully into the night.

 

Villages burned, women, children

Taken away or left for dead

Brave warriors struggle on

Outnumbered, outgunned, cast out

Sent away to lands unseen

Until the cycle begins again.

 

So many years have passed

Since those troubling times

Perhaps we have forgotten

Just how much the native tribes

Truly gave up by offering help

To strangely dressed white men

In their giant sailing ships

 

So on this day of giving thanks

Let us take a moment to reflect

On lives lost and races forever changed

By the early onset of the very things

That continue to plague us today

 

Greed and War in the name of “Progress”

Our “NEW WORLD” now shows her age

As we mercilessly continue our assault

On her very existence.

 

We should reflect on the very things

That made the Indian tribes a proud

And respectfully spiritual people.

It mattered not their tribe or clan

When all was said and done they

Were reigned over by the Earth

And the spirit guides of her many animals.

 

We cannot reverse the damage

Imposed upon the first inhabitants

So let us at least reverse the course

Of destruction on the one they held

So high in spiritual regard.

 

Let us be thankful once again

For a generous and bountiful mother

And bow down before her

Splendid magnificence