As Ancestors Cry
Begging
for what their past endowed
the Sioux
displaced once more
Imbued
by Wakan Tanka
their legacy
unmoored
They fought
the armed invader
winning battles
losing homes
Giving up
the greatest way
of life
— we’ve ever known
(‘Searching For Crazy Horse’: January, 2011)
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▾ This Poem's Voice
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Blends personal Sioux history with abstract philosophical loss and displacement.
Dense packing of ideas: displacement, legacy, battle, cultural loss compressed tightly.
Deeply elegiac and mournful; loss, dispossession, and cultural devastation dominate.
Urgent, fragmented syntax with verbs like 'fought' and 'winning' create tension.
Six lines; micro to very brief length category.
Personification of legacy 'unmoored,' metaphorical 'greatest way of life' and spiritual invocation.
Lyric voice with historical narrative layers; moves toward communal witness of tragedy.
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