Strong Medicine

There's a funny thing about magic
It's kinda tricky because if
The practitioner doesn't get it right
Magic makes a lot of trouble resulting
In madness. Unlimited wisdom and power
Don't share the credit, so please
Watch out if you are the ritualist.

Ghost dancers understand this, and
After the visions they chill out to
Be released from possession and they go
Back to their jobs at the hardware store
Ready to be used again later, not affected
By the power and the magic for having
Put on tribal costumes and singing and dancing
As the incredible happens in ceremonial circles.

The Keystone XL Pipeline-Tar Sands mining
Scheme has invaded Indian country from
Alberta, Canada through the Lakota's land in
The U.S. Dakotas on down through Nebraska
Beyond the vast sonoran desert landscape
All the way to refineries in southern Texas
Where farmers are being coerced off of their
Land and all hell has broken loose between
Government bureaucracies, the mining companies,
and transcontinental construction corporations,
Opposed by Earth First! radical environmentalists and
Rising Tide climate justice activists, while the
Indigenous native councils are in marathon meetings
Trying to reach consensus about money and respecting
Mother Earth, and what does Wakan Tanka expect?

Traditionalists debate the modernists as the ticking
Climate clock reminds that climatologists predict a
Tipping point near the solar eclipse August 21, 2017
And the men braid tobacco and send prayers upward
Carried by the smoke from red clay pipes as the
Women beat drums in a story telling circle
And the medicine man laughs because he knows.

Craig Louis Stehr
8.XII.'12