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Notes About The Poem

Another poem inspired by "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S.C.;Gwynne. An outstanding account of the life of Quanah Parker and his remarkable mother, Cynthia Ann Parker. Few texts on the Native American Experience carry such well-balanced poingnancy, I believe. Well worth the look.

Nautdah

Nautdah
Nautdah, they called you, 
In your real life they named you,
When you knew yourself,
When you lived out on the unforgiving plains.

As Nautdah, Comanche captive, 
You Became Comanche; 
Leaving behind the girl
Who was Cynthia Parker
Sloughed off like an ill-fitted skin.

You gave birth
To their greatest leader, Quanah
In a field of wildflowers on the Texas plain;
Forsook your language and embraced
That century of blood and pain
For the sake of a people who's way was dying
Even as you butchered bison on the endless sea of grass.
They recaptured you and made you a monument to what their wildness
Had made of you:
A woman of the Elements, a woman who would not be cowed
By the conventions of her time;
A woman who would never cease
Trying to return to the people to whom she really belonged,
To the people who belonged to the Sky, the Earth, the Wild Horses.

Before Quanah died, having lived with his feet in both Worlds,
He arranged to have your bones interred near his,
Where the two of you could lie together
To dream of wildflowers, and Freedom.

historyidentitylossmemorynativefree verse

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