Man's Evil Painted Red
Three-hundred bodies shrouded in the snow -
stiff symbols of man's evil painted red.
Did horror freeze on the faces also
of women, men and kids who simply fled?
They ran from men outnumbering each one
of them and who with mountain guns shot dead
the half of them who had no chance to run!
Imagine fleeing, filled with so much dread.
Two miles some women ran to get away.
Unarmed and innocent, they must have pled
when found, but troopers shot them anyway.
At one dead woman's breast, a child still fed!
Some boys who hid were told they would be spared
if they'd come forth, but they were circled by
a number of cruel soldiers when they dared
to show themselves. Those beasts wished them to die.
The boys were butchered; then they lay in mud
along with their good fathers once so strong,
Ravines and hills were running with their blood,
and vanished now would be their Ghost Dance song.
This happened in my homeland of the free
but not so brave, yet twenty medals went
to men who took part in that killing spree
(said honor given by the government).
That cold bleak morning, few of them survived.
For white folks, though, a great new century
was just ahead, but all the dreams had died
for those Lacotas killed at Wounded Knee.
For Anthony Biaanco's Guns Contest
Copyright © Andrea Dietrich | Year Posted 2016
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