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camille
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silver with coral mounds
like graves with lips
bracelet encircles my wrist
with the warmth of my
great grandfather's hand that's missed.
intricate message tells a tale
of earth and bloody sky
when earth was red and prayer died.
home grown tobacco'd breath
breeze blows scent even after his death
his spirit still dances in the shadows
the jig
with eyes so big
walks that brought me to a place of
understanding
where mounds call out to
silver lining.
scrawling out messages
for other men to discern divine
to continue with question's
rhythm and rhyme
heart that pulses like drum beat
beneath this band a memory
soft touch of my great grandfather's hand
handing me a treat
a buffalo nickel
with an indian's head
Camille 1987
Lieutenant Purington immediately recommended to Washington that the problem be disposed of basically the way the Indians had proposed, but four years later Asa Daklugie and his group were still trying to find a wider welcome in New Mexico. New Mexico Senator Albert B. Fall (later of Teapot Dome infamy) argued as follows to his fellow Senators on February 25 1913:
It is an outrage upon the people of New Mexico, and it is bad faith upon the part of the Secretary of the Interior….to insist that he will misapply these funds and take these Indians back, despite the protest of the legislature and of the people of New Mexico and of their Representatives in Congress...The entire people of New Mexico are protesting against this action... We do object most seriously to receiving them back in New Mexico, where they themselves and their fathers made the ground run red with the blood of Americans, descendents of whom are yet living around the Mescalero Reservation.....
... .. .-.. ...- . .-.
-. .. -.-. -.- . .-.. (silver nickel)
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