A Look Back

He wakens with the morning breeze;            
Another sunrise then he sees;                
He gets down on his bended knees            
    To give thanks for the day. 

               

He then performs each morning chore        
As he’s done many times before,            
And when he goes down to the shore,        
    A ship’s out on the bay.

                

And he cannot remember when            
He’s seen such surly looking men,            
And he recalls quite well back then            
    That grim and fateful day. 

               

But, really, he had no idea                
That what he saw, he soon would fear;        
A trail of tears he soon would steer;            
    His future bleak and gray.

                

They falsely said they came in peace;            
The wolf was then all wrapped in fleece;        
The hardships then would never cease.        
    The white man’s here to stay. 

               

Those strangers, with deceit well planned,                            
Would offer him a helping hand
But drive him from his native land
    And not give him a say.

 

For years he’d lived upon this land,
No man, on him, had made demand,
And now he could not understand
    Why he must move away.

 

And then the white man took great pride
In perpetrating genocide,
As God, above, in Heaven cried
    To see this grim display.

 

And now out on the reservation,
Natives of a once proud nation
Wait for their emancipation -
    Their lives in disarray.

 

I hope that we all recognize
That though our flag of freedom flies,
To natives it is naught but lies.
    They suffer, still, today.