The Payment

Richard Walker, Mexican/Yaqui, is a newspaper editor in Kitsap County, Washington, and is a correspondent for Indian Country Today Media Network. His poem "The Payment" pays tribute to Indigenous culture, heritage and pride in current day Mexico and commemorates Cinco de Mayo, which observes the Mexican army's victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

The Payment  http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/05/payment-poem-honor-cinco-de-mayo-154735

To those conquistadors
who came here and tried
to replace our culture
with their own:
This is what the world
shall know about you.
You were nothing but unwelcome
visitors here,
your names and language
were left here
like forgotten baggage.
Here’s what we have done:
We have kept your names
and language as payment
for the destruction you left
behind,
for lives lost,
for rape and enslavement,
for your gold lust.
No one will say now that
we are Hispanic or
Latino.
We are Indigenous People.
The names we carry and
the common language we speak
belong to us and we
are not giving them back.
They belong to the Indigenous now.
Our names are not Spanish
names. They are Mexican names.
The new language we speak
is not the Spanish language.
It is a Mexican language.
You did not erase our
Indigenous identities.
We still dance the fire dance.
We still dance the deer dance.
We remember and honor our ancestors.
You are gone, but
we are still here.
When people hear our names
and when people hear us speak,
they will say,
“Ah, there is one who carries
the blood,
A child of The Survivors.”
Our People live on

Rethinking Cinco de Mayo
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Rethinking-Cinco-de-Mayo.html?soid=1101431245776&aid=j-PH4AnwqsY

A Beautiful Spoken Word Piece About the Importance of Water

Every Equinox and Solstice, I honor the water and the birds.  The water is essential for our survival.  The birds will let us know when it is too late.

The WATER BOOK
http://www.waterislife.com/

Walk in Beauty

With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.

(Part of a Navajo Ritual called the night chant)

Westward Migration by CFT

Clamoring for gold in California’s hills,
the forty-niners panned, raked, and shook the land
‘til what remained was only loose rocks and fill.

1 in 20 was dealt a richer hand
than what fed him in his previous home
That’s better odds than most could stand.

Though Sacagawea could walk the path alone,
Lewis and Clark used her because they knew that she
would know the people who needed to be known

Her “Oregon trail” went as far as the eye could see
“Land for the taking…
A new frontier,” said Manifest Destiny

The buffalo herds, once grand and racing
disappeared as the railroad ripped and filed
transcontinental tracks with steady pacing.

10 miles a day and 400 rails per mile
brought telegraph and visitors
through gaping holes blown into mountain sides.

The mountain views, the canyon floor,
and changes in the greenery
could not be stopped with this now open door.

Changes in the scenery
was nothing compared to destruction of people’s lives.
The Supreme Court could not even stop the thievery.

The Trail of Tears moved Native People 4,000 miles
away from whence they came.
Promises of a better life, land, and claim. All lies.

After all that, nothing was ever the same.