Untold memories exude from the simple stone
that rests on top of the gravestone.
The Indian Mission Cemetery
haunts and echoes of years gone.
Crescent moons, sun rays,
raindrops under white-blue clouds,
painted on weather-worn crosses.
The buried lie witness to
silver lakes of bass,
deer herds,
laces of lichen,
velvet moss.
Ojibwa hearts carry on—
Chief Blue Cloud
Baby Nedwash
Hole in Sky
John Michigan
Squada
Unknown
Drafts in the remote cemetery
move deliberate and free—
The dream catcher reaches for dreams,
fluttering from the nearby tree.
Small flags upright in the damp humus
wave to war heroes
from these proclaimed forests
of long-ago chants and broken arrows.
A stone is not just a stone—
when the blood of a tribe
holds fast to a fading past.