Sunlight On Water

Sunlight On Water
© Surazeus
2018 02 07

The young girl with long black hair and black eyes
stares at sunlight flickering on river waves
and listens to wind singing in the trees.
"My sweet mother called me Sunlight on Water."

She stares at her hand, red as river clay.
"My father told me the man from the sun
formed the first people from red river clay,
and sparked our eyes from walnuts in the grass."

Turning at the chirp of birds in the trees,
Sunlight on Water gathers black walnuts
and raspberries in the basket she wove.
"My sister said the birds gave us our voices."

Sitting by the river in twilight glow,
she eats walnuts and raspberries alone.
During sunset she whistles like a bird,
and watches the moon glow through rustling trees.

Huddling in bushes where the river flows,
she closes eyes tight and clutches her heart
that thunders like buffalo on gold hills,
but cries clutching wood horse her mother carved.

"I left the tipi to fill bags with water
when men on horses, in blue uniforms,
raced through our town and shot everyone dead.
I hid in the bushes till they were gone."

Wiping tears from her eyes in the moonlight,
Sunlight on Water hums sweeet melody
her mother used to sing about the woman
who came down through the clouds from land of stars.

"Everyone in my family is now dead,
but I sense them near wherever I go.
Though they cannot see and they cannot speak
I see and speak for them, so they live in me."

Rising at pink flash of dawn through the trees,
Sunlight on Water walks along the river,
and feels the soft wind blowing through her hair
so she breathes deep the spirit of the sky.

"In bright glow of sunlight their spirits fade,
but they seem to guide my way through the world
because I see their shadows on the grass."
Clouds resembling people play in the sky.