chief letters
After 36 days from receiving your letter
After 44 prayers nothing's getting better
I hand it over now cuz it's your baby
Your hand is to your brow because
it's your problem
I'd talk to you/but I get you confused with my mother/all along I thought/you
were my blood/like no other
Your ways are strange; I'm savage
Do not understand
This land is my mother
How could you put a price on her?
Do you know that you know me better than anybody?
Did you think I would laugh when I was severed from my land?
It's not my wish to abandon; I don't know why it's this way
The greatest chief must have a plan, and I have
no say
I'd talk to you/but I get you confused with my mother/all along I thought/you
were my blood/like no other
When you tried to talk to me/Why couldn't it be face to face?/Here I sit, disgraced/In
my lonely place
I am Chief Seattle and I write to you
I am a mere savage but I know the truth
If I give up my mother, it's a matter of faith this time
I'll stay where I must
to be the truth
inside these lines
When you were my friend at least when you cut me it was slack/Now on a reservation/All
you give me is your back
I'd talk to you
but I get you confused
with my mother
Noose nor Reason
Hold tight those reigns of poor design
I'll fritter away below the horizon
Fearful and caged
Grey hairs to this day
I frantically pluck despite said malaise
Whether this suits language unspoken or said
I care not more than for the noose about my head
Lilies need open love from passerby staids
Diminish my space and
soon we'll see death
Hand me the level, the match without strike
Hand me three words all said in one night
Consider this space between heaven and hell
(I've found them here-between a wish and a belle)
As I pity myself
As I writhe in this well
Without a noose nor reason
nor a place so terrible