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Open Poetry #9
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The Trail Where We Cried
| Open Poetry #9 |
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The Trail Where We Cried |
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jwesley Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563Spring, Texas 
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...don't know that this waxes "poetic" as much as "prosetic", but I hope it works. Comments welcome... The Trail Where We Cried The roundup began May, 1883; Seventeen thousand people and me. With rifle ready, and bayonet point, U.S. Soldiers seized my people from behind the plow, dragged us from our homes, even separated us from our children. We weren't asked, we were told; we weren't helped, we were cajoled, and pushed, and ripped from all that we were. Even though we stopped being hunters, warriors, men of pride, turned to farming, adopted their republican form of government, cast away our idols and learned to worship their God, We were packed into stockades, interment camps, prisons, red dogs, chained, not free; the "Great U.S. Father" had lied again. All we owned, all we had, except what we wore, and carried in our arms, was left; our houses, furnishings, livestock, prey to the scavengers that looted our homes, rifled our graves, stripped our dead of their valuables. Many of us stayed forever in the stockades, ravaged by disease that spread faster than the wind. Hundreds of us perished, and tears stained the ground for days, and days. They were the lucky ones. We were gathered into groups of a thousand or so, our own "police" forced to maintain order, forced to supervise our "migration", so cost to the government would be low; migration forced upon us by that very government. We were given wagons, horse-drawn, to carry our sick, our old, food and water and forced from the stockades, in October, on a three month trek through the heart of winter, exiled to our "new home" Seventeen thousand Cherokee People. Seventeen thousand CHEROKEE PEOPLE! Seventeen Thousand Cherokee People "Womens cry and make sad wails, Childrens cry, Mens cry, All sad, like when friends die." Seventeen thousand Cherokee People, heads bowed, sick in the heart, dying in the soul, walking West. Sickness, disease, rain, sleet, snow, cold, cold, so cold; I watched my brother bury his family; father and mother, brothers and sisters, eight in all, one a day, till all were gone. I grieved, for him, for me, for the four thousand dead, for the Cherokee Nation. We were the last group to walk The Trail Where We Cried. And I was the last of the Cherokee, to say goodbye to ancestral lands, to see the graves, and dead, and dying for a thousand miles. The Trail Where We Cried. Seventeen thousand Cherokee People; Sixty thousand Indians in all. w. james beard, jr. [This message has been edited by jwesley (edited 08-01-2000).] |
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| © Copyright 2000 Wesley James Beard, Jr. - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
poetic..YES powerful...YES awesome ...YES amazing writing here JW....truly just superb take care poet-sir jm There are places inside our souls - that have never been touched. There are places inside our hearts - that need to be loved this much. ~jm~ |
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jwesley Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563Spring, Texas |
Mucho thanks, JM, you are most kind. jwesley |
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Alwye
Moderator
Member Elite
since 1999-06-16
Posts 3850In the space between moments |
Ah, the famed Trail of Tears...what a horrid thing to have had to have gone through...my heart bleeds for those people, for all of the Indian people, for my ancestors...a powerful tale you've woven here, I enjoyed it greatly. *Krista Knutson* "You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back." -Barbara DeAngelis |
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Marge Tindal 
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
JWesley~ The Trail is emblazoned in our memory. Great Ancestral Spirits remind us of the peace we must seek ... and history writes the carnage. As we sit the Vision Quest we will find that the blood shed on that trail courses in the currents of the messages, brought forth by the forefathers, telling of the peace that will come. Thank you for a significant reminder. ~*Marge*~ ~*The pen of the poet never runs out of ink, as long as we breathe.*~ noles1@totcon.com |
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Jenova Junior Member
since 2000-08-02
Posts 16germany |
Wow... the Trail of Tears was always something that concerned me deeply... and your poem is great, I think you really managed to show the despair... the hopelessness... and the question how man could ever be able to do such things. I quite like the way you use different formats to point out the "17.000 cherokee people"... ah well, and to marge I must say, your comment is already a poem itself... god your amazing... *bows* beautiful! |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
Fantastic and revealing writing...James |
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jwesley Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563Spring, Texas |
Thanks all for your read and comments. This was a hard piece to write because there is so much to the tale; so much pain and suffering, so much heartache, so many lies and deceit, before, during and after the forced march (thanks to Andrew Jackson BTW), and done to a people that bent over backwards to fit in. This is easily a piece that could stretch for pages and pages. And I guess it's a piece I'd call "in progress" because I'm not satisfied with it at all...it really doesn't convey the emotion or the suffering I wanted it too, but I did want feedback on what I had already. Something that came to mind when I began researching this piece - which maybe some of you remember or remember from history - is the Batan Death March during WWII where the Japanese did essentially the same thing to American Soldiers (but as prisoners of war - not the rape of a people) and the fact that so much was/has been made of that - yet so little was/is ever made of "The Trail Of Tears" and the continuing injustice to a great and proud people. I, for one, apologize to the American Indians, for the transgressions of my forefathers of yesterday and today. jwesley |
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