Long Moccasins Poems

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Kites still left hanging upon the winds oh, yes, the generous enchantment, the ever-innocent simplicity. 

Warning us and swirling around and whooshing about amid the humble Streams in the Spring. 

Time jovial, patient Offering Loving...

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Opening 
Fourth street and the divide meet 
Near the stream where it's waters Impede 
Five metres walk from the wooden bridge 
A little further away from the deserted car park 
Underneath the third tree with...

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Four days have been spent going about like goats
following curves and ravines, climbing cliffs and being tortured by prickly pears
the cactuses from hell that I'm certain are alive and plotting to puncture our feet,
in many...

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Dream Song of the Thunders
Chippewa saying
translation by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes I bemoan my “plight”
when all the while
the wind bears me across the immense sky.


What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of the winter buffalo.
The...

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Crazy Horse's Naming Vision
by Michael R. Burch

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through these clouds that are aimlessly drifting...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk...

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“A snake in the grass”. Such a powerful and direct metaphor of treachery, is it not? We strive to avoid such ones believed to be so venomous, like snakes hidden in the grass. The metaphor...

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Snakes And Mr. Baines
By Curtis Johnson

The phrase, “A snake in the grass”, has often been expressed toward certain individuals. Such a powerful and direct metaphor of treachery, is it not?

Among the first stories ever heard...

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When I was very young
All I really wanted
To be was an Indian.
My mother always read to me -
Stories of fairies and elves,
Of princesses and ogres, witches,
And brownies who did good deeds.
Poems, “Wynken, Blynken and Nod”,
“The...

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We Are One


Dear Ancient Sister
I hear your distant calls finding me on a gentle breeze
You have lived in my dreams for many seasons

My voice 
Your voice
My soul
Your soul
And our Coming of Age

I have always known...

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In a royal antibacterial waste machine one must wait for the willing vibrancy of the whistling seal. Dressed neatly in a three piece suit he sits on a rock and calls to the breezes on...

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Eamon heard the rocks skitter away,
scree tumbling down with his every step,
descending from towering Mount Gilborne,
to a lake below where he could rest.

He knew a spot to set up his new tent,
where the conifers came...

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The years fall so softly like the leaves,
And those we knew dwindle in the night,
While our soul now heals and seldom grieves
About what we recall and try to write.

In my storage room one day I...

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The sun receded quietly on a relaxing siesta, as 
Calm clouds of the mid-afternoon smiled henced,
The beat of the drums provideth dancing rhythm
As she moved in pure elegance with harmony, to
A style of danced buoyantly...

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HARRY WEST 

The Kadaitchi (Witch Doctor) Knight

Harry stood alone and sniffed the breeze
a pongy hay smell,  Japanese
Harry sheltered there beneath a tree
a gum tree dripping sap

The  Black Knight shed his lap lap
joined the...

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Kites hanging on the winds the enchantment, simplicity ... warning swirling whooshing about amid the humble Streams in the Spring ... . Time jovial, patient Offering Loving thief it weeps ... ! Burnt down roses...

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Lay down noiselessly,
as long as you stay still
and breathe lightly, then they will ignore you.

You can smile under your eyelids,
you can pretend that they have legs
and wear business suits.
You can imagine milking the poison
out of...

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On arrival in the American Outback I was warned.
“ Beware of the red man.”
“ He is a lazy drunk.”
“A dishonest gambler.”
“And  makes an unworthy neighbor.”

In the late summer heat of a state fair,
I discovered...

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Wandering through the bayou,
wrapped in its eerie embrace.
Mysterious and strange--
a magical place.
Never seeming to change,
even as seasons come and go,
swampy waters ebb to and fro.

Like long-lost daughters,
gnarled courtly cypress trees
rise from black, murky waters.
Draped lovingly...

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...

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A Soldiers Dream 
I bow my head down in shame as my tears fall down like drops of rain . 
I couldn't save my fellow man in this far and distant land 
We came here...

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Red-wine melodies
And moon-light visions,
Painted moments
Of my best memory,
Live among the swamps
Where midnight climbs cypress trees,
The bounty-hunter 
Of my childhood.

There,
Water-moccasins and alligators
Are much prettier 
Than the human atrocities 
I’ve encountered
Since first wandering
From those familiar lands,
So savage...

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White Eagle sat in silence, cross-legged;
his eyes were closed,
as the mountains wind blew against his feathered
headdress. He breathed in and out uniformly,
as though he was breathing together
with Mother Earth.

His brothers were preparing for a battle;
they...

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