EDITOR’S NOTE: Poet Lois Red Elk sends her new year’s greetings to you, Mountain Journal readers, and with this edition of her column, Words From Open Earth, she shares a new poem coupled with another that formed the title of her critically-acclaimed volume of poems, Why I Return To Makoce. Together they speak to an unbreakable bond of connection that has persevered in spite of atrocities committed on U.S. soil and rank among the worst in recorded human history. As long as there is the life-giving spirit of Mother Earth present, she believes, no people are forever lost. And while there is pain in remembrance, Red Elk’s lyrical works show the strength of resilience—and, especially in these times, love. Mitakuye Oyasin is not mentioned specifically in the works below but it flows through the lines. It is a term that means “all my relations”—in other words our interconnectedness—each one of us— to everything else in the universe.
Rekindling My Lakota Mind
By Lois Red Elk
It’s been like a number of explosions, one
after the other, evenly paced and intentionally set, all
coordinated from a distance lifetime, from scrutiny
and study by a hungry mind. Some of the blasts
are a total surprise, like the early popping of Spring
ice that’s been slowly thawing by natural means, a
kind of warmth shattering hardened layers. Each
outbreak has been preparing since an old inner mind
spurt was revived by latent but familiar words heard
from my innocent childhood, from devoted thoughts
and current dreams – times slowly uncovered, not
lost but hidden for a survival prompt, an opening of
gates. You must understand how little pieces of me
were selected and carved out of me by knives called
theory, how my spirit was targeted and saved with
beatings and isolation called religion. Those dear
childhood units of self were tossed in the mired heap
of other stolen brain cells, cells chopped from blood cousins,
from so many other children who couldn’t
resist, didn’t know one horrible terror from the other.
I watched where they dumped all the innocent brain
stems, childhood memories, culture of indefinite time,
matrilineal tongue and songs of earth. All, like trash.
Total spirit was then set on fire with something they
called a warning, a place where we would be sent if
we didn’t listen, if we didn’t stop speaking our sacred
languages. It was a place they seemed to know well,
a place they called hell. So young, I witnessed how
strange creeds were transplanted into our pure mouths,
eyes, ears and hearts, so confusing it made no sense.
It would take the birth of new children being herded
into the same scene that reset my will, my pledge to
stop another hacking, another thieving go-around. I
retrieved all the bloody remnants we called sacred
evolution, bundled them like precious remains, lit
branches of sage and asked the Gods above and the
Gods below to breathe life back into the quiet but
undead children. Ancestors from the four directions
heard our prayers, rekindling our Lakota minds with joy
to keep ourselves together on Mother Earth.
©Lois Red Elk
Why I Return to Makoce
By Lois Red Elk
She was always there. No matter where I resided – near racing
freeways or crowded streets, near oceans or deserts, her calm and
strength was there permeating the smog, waste and crime. Every
day, she provides for the hearts, breath and being of the people,
I heard her. I know because I have listened to her private prayers
all seeing and hopeful for us human beings. She understands
herself as she knows her place in the universe. She keeps the pace,
that connecting force, that matches our pulse. She lends her breath
as air so we may breathe. She aided in our birth, her womb is our
life on earth. She’s cried joyously in rippling water and she speaks
of knowledge in stories of the Wamakaska. I’ve seen her arms
embrace the clouds and watched her finger tips caress the smallest
of stones, tiny insects, roots of giant trees and grains of grass. All
her prayers are in one of the oldest tongues of the Wahpetonwan,
the dialect of wooded earth, protecting all in shadows of intricate
light filtered through oval leafs. I’ve observed her teaching lessons
about hues of fog preparing to lift and reveal the stark transformation
of grasses, stems and tree branches all glistening in drops of dew, life
quenched with the refreshing moist breath of rivers and exhaling
swamp. I’ve watched how she places seeds in warm moist places
to lie quiet while a complex amount of energy and cells multiplied
for the beginnings of new life. I’ve listened to her laugh among
leaves of cottonwood, the rattling in precise tones for traditional
flutes and watched her feed the souls of all living with songs older
than the moon. In her morning prayers, she invites dawn through
bedroom curtains with murmurs transforming our unclear shades
of light into bright open spaces. She’s braced our bodies for our
work and travels and gives us a voice in the universe, shaking hands
with the morning star. Her love is shared when I watch the tender
moments as her smile unfolds clouds to extend relieving shade for
the innocent, her protective embrace for the children and animals.
Why I return to Makoce over and over is to embrace that assurance
of unity with all contained on Grandmother Earth and to accept the
peace she shares knowing all is well in her grace. My chest overloads
on ionized air after inhaling her continuing stories of light and dark,
the balance endorsed by tides and sun flares. No other love can take
care of life, without a price, can hold the unknown in balance
and can give generously spirit upon spirit to aid our sacred walk. This
has always been my seat, the warm place on her lap. It is my first
completion, my beginning in this area of the universe, and, it will be
this bodies’ final resting place as I leave with my spirit, to join the
wind that will circle her forever, our Maka Unchi, Maka Ina, Makoce.
©Lois Red Elk
Red Elk’s book, Why I Return To Makoce was edited by Montana’s recent state poet laureate Lowell Jagger. In reviewing the volume Heather Cahoon wrote, “These poems, which are steeped in Lakota cultural traditions, urge us to take a deep breath, to take initiative, and to not allow ourselves to drift back to the safety of chains. They encourage readers to believe that change is possible and that it is through our reconnection with the spirit realm.” Available through local independent booksellers.
