Great Spirit whispered,
Look at the dog stars--
The great yelping there.
White men call them twins.
This place we learned to call
New World of First Nations,
this place that holds our bones,
we learn to call the Americas.
This middle place
was born with the yelping
of the dog stars.
Left and right,
the Gem-in-eye Dogs
are tethered together.
My grandmother gave blood
to a Cherokee man. This
is where I learned
to listen and watch
Great-Spirit-Beautiful-Cosmos.
I see Gem-in-eye Dogs pull the hearts
of the human beings, because they shine
so bright. To see them both
with a single eye is a hard thing.
We should sit and listen
to what the elders say
when they sit together
in counsel and smoke the pipe.
They have talked about the yelping
of the dog stars, how bright the gem
in each others' eyes.
Those who hear the voice
of the Ancient Ones
whose bones lay in this land
on which we stand,
should ask if
We, The People
are human beings
who do not know how to see,
because there is more than
a single shining gem
before each of our eyes.