words from simple men

[saw]

I learned many English words
knew the Ten Commandments
knew of the white man's bed
could pray to Jesus, comb my hair
eat with a knife and fork, use

a toilet, I learned that many men
think only with their greed, never
with their hearts, but they called
themselves civilized, yes white men
brought many changes

but their fruits though brightly colored
were sickeningly sweet, deadening
I ask myself, is it progress to cheat
thwart, steal, maim, butcher, I ....would
like to say to the world, that perhaps

the man that sits on the ground
in his tepee meditating on life
and its meaning, accepting the kinship
of the squirrel, the bear, the bee, the
butterfly, acknowledging his oneness

with Universal Mother and her splendid
works of art.....This Man is a man infusing
his blood with hope, compassion, dignity,
honor, beauty....A Man giving breath, giving
Life to this thing called civilization.

[Steve Plonk]

Saw, I love the "otherness" narration in this poem...Civilization is a veneer on the table of humanity...We all have issues and deal with them different ways...thought provoking!

[Hollweg]

Tecumseh

His brother was called
The Prophet.
They saw it coming.

They converted great numbers
to the rightness
of their crusade--

to give their lives and energy,
for independence
and to endure.

Paul and Timothy,
Moses and Amos,
Tecumseh and The Prophet.

Rebecca Galloway
taught him, and loved him,
they say, and refused him.

He’s the natural man
Rousseau wasn’t
thinking about.

[justwalt]

Very sad,
very good,
very true

Societal progress is...
like, teaching a cannibal
to eat with clean utensils...

...it all sounds good, until
you receive an invitation to
dinner.

[jim turner]

Well put. Not many have even heard of Tecumseh and his brother Prophet. Often I have said that "civilization" is an oxymoron.

The "white" man also began the civilized practice of scalping--paying bounties for Indian hair, and of giving "enemy" tribes blankets infected with smallpox. So much for civilized history textbooks. jim