The thirsty dirt beneath my crossed legs
splits open like the carcass of newly wounded meal.
My vision drops with the worn Sun.
In the horizon a shadow of dust broadens into a figure.
A man who conquers his fixation for power with cruel disgust,
as a reluctant gallop drags through the valley.

He brings others of his kind,
prodding us like the horse he surmounts.
Ripping us away from comfort like the currents of a waterfall,
and we are the pebbles who helplessly drift over the edge.
In our plummet over the last smooth rock,
we displace our souls more than our homes.

When the white man's dark shadow engulfs my body,
I remain seated—a humble oak during a windless sunset.
My glazed eyes speculate with terror,
as the horse's legs collapse and contort into wheels,
the black coat of skin hardens into plastic and metal,
exhaust floods into my blood stream with each breath.

Soil crumbles into the air; a carpet of pavement remains.
Yellow tint of the Sun darkens into a sultry orange as the
mountains around me unravel into blocks of concrete.
My hands of drying clay clasp a spear with a disturbed fear.
Feathers at the end of the wooden cylinder protrude;
No longer the creation of the land, only a frivolous trophy.

A sack of dyed hide made from dying herds,
who watched with the same concern as I do.
Flint molded into a weapon to manipulate stones against animals.
The eagle watches from behind its beak,
as Natives pluck the feathers from its kind and craft them into headdresses.
The observant fowl's skin turns numb where every feather is removed.

I understand that my kind is like theirs.
I have conquered the birds in the same way they conquer us.
I have transformed stone in the same way they transform our culture.
I have ruled these lands in the way the white man rules us.