Yeah, I haven’t posted in a long while, and I shouldn’t be posting now, but I’d rather do this than write the journal paper I am working on and this will only take a minute or two.
There is a show that comes on here on Monday mornings on the History Channel called the Real West. It is a fairly cool show about the Old West and it starts with this very cool poem or quote or whatever it is that I thought I would share with whoever still reads this blog. After googling around, it appears that it is a Lakota poem and in the show a native american reads it as the images switch to match the poem. Anyway, it never fails to get to me so here it is.
In the past that is now lost forever
There was a time when the land was sacred
And the Ancient Ones were as one with it
A time when only the children of the Great Spirit were here
To light their fires in these places with no boundaries
When the forests were as thick
As the fur of a winter bear
When a warrior could walk from horizon to horizon
On the backs of the buffalo
When the deserts were in bloom
And the streams pure as freshly fallen snow
In that time, when there were only simple ways
I saw in my heart the conflicts to come
And whether it was to be for good or bad
What was certain was, that there would be change
You must be feeling maudlin, bro.
Yet, I cannot deny the poignancy of the image.
I guess I was feeling a bit maudlin… I certainly didn’t want to write that paper 😉
Anyway, the images that this poem strike in my mind are very intriguing.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be back on this continent 400 years ago or so. What would it look like without the hand of mankind reshaping it?
I like the idea of ‘places with no boundaries’, or at least it strikes some sort of emotional chord in me.
So yes, I guess I was maudlin 🙂