BY AMANDA HAYDEN
Ripped up oaks, roofless houses, upturned trucks, fences in trees
a handful of buildings still stand, more crushed to pulp, buried under debris
sundry handfuls of history books continue to call massacres “battles”
hide manifest destiny’s countless faces: deliberate-starvation-long face
spread-of-incurable-disease-spotted face, forced-removals-stone face
broken-treaties-betrayal face, The Trail Where They Cried survivors
discards on Oklahoma dumping grounds, where tear-children-out-of-mothers’-arms face waits
steal kids to “residential schools” where mouths are taped shut, Native tongues silenced
hair sliced with assimilation guillotines
prayers beaten from tiny threadbare bodies, no burial for names
tossed in the mass grave of civilize, white-man-ize, identity genocide
generational trauma like funnel clouds of rolling thunder and Hitler
who loved a cowboy, wrote his valentine for the Long Walk
admired its “blueprint” for concentration camps, reservations for ghettos
and mass graves duplicates of Wounded Knee
where half a century before, U.S. soldiers rolled and stacked bodies
the same bodies whose spirits Ghost Danced in prayer hours earlier,
before the massacre, or “battle” if battles involve women and children
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hayden is the current Poet Laureate for Sinclair College and Professor of Humanities (Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, and World Religions). She has received several pedagogy awards, including the SOCHE Teaching Award and the prestigious League for Innovation Teaching Excellence Award (2020).
In addition to her children’s book, Windy Chicken Farm Animal Rescue, she wrote Saunter Like Muir for Eco-pedagogies: Practical Approaches to Experiential Learning (Routledge, 2022). She just finished her debut poetry collection, American Saunter, inspired by her time living, camping, and backpacking across the U.S. She lives on a farm with her partner, three daughters, three dogs, two cats, two goats, seven pigs, chickens, and Dorothy the duck.
The Green Shoe Sanctuary 