Waking Up on Turtle Island 2025

On the dollar side of 70 years old,

 I wake up to another sunrise over “Sachem Nonnewaug’s Hill.”

Reds and purple give way to grey and white and blue,

 And the sun will soon glisten on the ice covered snow,

But the sun seems caught in the trees and the clouds on that hill.

 

I’ve got my feet up,

Only one of them swollen and bruised

   The morning news in an ear bud

Only one so that the news

Only sounds half as bad  

Only sounds half as sad

And I attempt to feel only half as blue

 

And Leonard went home yesterday,

“Stretched his eyes” like Les Two-Horns used to say,

For the first time in 50 years,

And that’s the only good news I think I’ve heard

In a month that feels like 50 years

 

 I think about 50 years of changes in the land,

Not just on that hillside

But also along the roadsides and the rivers

As yet another stone remnant of Turtle Island

Disappears forever without much notice by anyone but me it seems

 

And then I think about 500 and even 5000 years of changes in the land

And then I think I should be writing more right here and now

And then I hear more bad news, more changes in the land,

And the sun breaks through, shining right into my eyes…

 

Wednesday, February 19, 2025