Remember, History can teach us many Lessons......Lessons to be repeated
over and over again.....until we learn from them. Blessings, Rhi......
Theo's Dream (written and spoken by Robert Mirabal from his "Indians, Indians" CD)
Uncle Theo and I road down the same dusty reservation road, on the same reservation truck, being chased by the same old reservation dogs, for as long as I can remember. Going through the old corn fields, it was in the spring and all the Indians and the neighboring Mexican farmers were getting ready for the planting. Many of them were burning last years crops and clearing for the plowing.
The never ending Pueblo river raged on dark brown. Cottonwood trees were swept floating down through the Pueblo, it was a beautiful, beautiful spring run off and brown trout munched fresh wintery worms. Uncle Theo had been in Vietnam in 1971, he was gone one spring and was back home in the winter with an honorable discharge and a leg missing and he always felt useless.
"Your wondering where I've gone, I've become a soldier in greens and greys holding a gun, another for the slaughter, wherever I go you are with me, your kisses are in my blood, whatever I do you do with me, your kisses are in my blood".
Uncle Theo told me that the enemy looked like us and that he didn't get hurt by them but by his seargant who they say he was in the Klu Kux Klan somewhere in Alabama...and all those poor soldiers went in as Americans fighting for the red white and blue, but America has never really had any true common goals except to kill one another. Because still White boys hated Black boys, the Italians hated the Jews, Chicanos hated the Chinese boys and down the line it went....and the Indians hated them all because all of them came from another country and killed its people, and they were doing the same, yet in another country...and the memories of hate remain.
"Your wondering where I've gone, I've become a soldier in greens and greys holding a gun, another for the slaughter, wherever I go you are with me, whatever I do you do with me, your kisses , your kisses are in my blood....please don't forget our love songs they only become stronger, please don't forget."...
Years have gone by but the field burning and raging spring run off reminded him of Vietnam. He sat quietly in the truck as I drove past a grainery and across the American steel bridge. He just stared at the faded dusty greyish fence lines to the cornfields. Theo turned the radio on opened the truck door, adjusted his artificial leg and stared down the watery fields, as they reflected the Indian Sunset. Fried red dogs whined and barked and the pictures in his mind begin, the movie begins in his mind, as I channel water from seeds of sweet corn patches to pumpkin and bean and chili and "in rows they will all stand like soldiers facing the unknown, in rows they will all stand like soldiers facing the unknown"....as they wait so peacefully for the unknown, as they die again and again and rebirth them all.
"Your wondering where I've gone I've become a soldier in greens and greys, holding a gun, another for the slaugther and wherever I go you are with me, your kisses are in my blood...and whatever I do you do with me, your kisses, your kisses will be with me forever in my blood"....
1 comment:
Remember, History can teach us many Lessons......Lessons to be repeated
For the last several days I have been listening to a series of CD's about Greek history while driving to and from work.
Those CD's offer valuable lessons in how Athens reached a fantasic peak of development and accomplishment only to toss it away on stupid overseas adventures that only benefited a few.
America ain't far behind I feel although I don't see history repeating as much as what Mark Twain called history rhyming. The result will be mostly the same though adn I don't see us coming back like Athens.
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