Prairies of Stone

Excerpts from a talk given by Lee Brown (Baha'i- Cherokee) at the 1986 Baha'i Continental Indigenous Council, Fairbanks, Alaska

"There was the cycle of the mineral, the rock. There was the cycle of the plant. And now we are in the cycle of the animal coming to the end of that and beginning the cycle of the human being. When we get into the cycle of the human being, the highest and greatest powers that we have will be released to us. They will be released from that light or soul that we carry to the mind. But right now we're coming to the end of the animal cycle and we have investigated ourselves and learned what it is to be like an animal on this earth.

...

'They say at that time there will be villages in this land so great that when you stand in the villages you will not be able to see out, and in the prophecies these are called "villages of stone", or "prairies of stone". And they said the stone will grow up from the ground and you will not be able to see beyond the village. At the center of each and every one of these villages will be Native people, and they will walk as "hollow" shells upon a "prairie of stone". They said "hollow shells" which means they will have lost any of their traditional understandings; they will be empty within. They said after the Eagle lands on the moon some of these people will begin to leave these "prairies of stone" and come home and take up some of the old ways and begin to make themselves reborn, because it's a new day.

LINK

Leaving New York City.

I hired a coach to take me from confusion to the plane

And though we shared a common space I know I'll never meet again

The driver with his eyebrows furrowed in the rear-view mirror

I read his name and it was plainly written Nathan La Franeer

I asked him would he hurry

But we crawled the canyons slowly

Through the buyers and the sellers

Through the burglar bells and the wishing wells

With gangs and girly shows

The ghostly garden grows

The cars and buses bustled through the bedlam of the day

I looked through window-glass at streets and Nathan grumbled at the grey

I saw an aging cripple selling Superman balloons

The city grated through chrome-plate

The clock struck slowly half-past-noon

Through the tunnel tiled and turning

Into daylight once again I am escaping

Once again goodbye

To symphonies and dirty trees

With parks and plastic clothes

The ghostly garden grows

He asked me for a dollar more

He cursed me to my face

He hated everyone who paid to ride

And share his common space

I picked my bags up from the curb

And stumbled to the door

Another man reached out his hand

Another hand reached out for more

And I filled it full of silver

And I left the fingers counting

And the sky goes on forever

Without meter maids and peace parades

You feed it all your woes

The ghostly garden grows

You feed it all your woes
The ghostly garden grows

Native Hoop Dance by Kevin Locke (Lakota)