Laureen Blu Waters
350
the number of bones in a human body
Scattered underground
Thousands of silent stories, from a long time ago
And those just recent
Never given the chance to pass information
from Mothers to Daughters, Fathers to Sons
Relatives to relatives
Little children’s stolen voices
Lives taken without a choice
Daughters, Aunties, Mothers, Grandmothers
Bodies far from home
Silently lay in unmarked graves
Stories from long time ago
Lost in the dirt
Who will hear their words?
Grass, trees, shrubs, flowers, vines, seeds, they speak for them!
Medicines we harvest and use to heal our sicknesses
Nourished by their bones, deep in mother earth
Roots reaching far below the surface of the untrained eye
These ancestors and family members do not lay silent
They wait for our visits
Calling to us during each season, winter, spring, Summer, fall
Coming back to life, nourishing their children with their wisdom
Their deaths have not been in vain
They remain
Time capsules
Waiting to be discovered by us
2009