One of my favorite books is this book, "From Sand Creek."
And I think it's OK for a poet to have a favorite book, right?
In my early recovery, or attempts
at this time of recovery in the 1970s,
I was at the VA hospital in alcohol and rehab program
in Fort Lyons, Colorado.
And I had heard about Sand Creek where
the massacre of Native of Cheyenne and Arapaho people
have taken place in 1864, not far
from Fort Lyons VA hospital.
Fort Lyons used to be one of the frontier
forts to protect the settlers, protect the settlers
against the Indians.
Well, 100 years later, were the 1960s and 1970s and the war
in Vietnam was taking place.
And I thought about the similarities.
Vietnam in 1960s and '70s.
1860s, '70s, '80s.
Wars against the indigenous peoples, Indian peoples.
In the Great Plains and in Arizona, the Apaches.
And of course, in Arizona, since it was war against the Indians,
almost all Indians were Apaches.
So I wrote this book not right away,
but over a period of time, although I
began note taking in the second time I went back
to the Fort Lyons.
And I will read a few sections or a few from there.
This preface with--
"November 29, 1864, on that cold dawn, about 600
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people, 2/3 of them
women and children, were camped on a bend of Sand
Creek in Southeastern Colorado.
The people were at peace.
This was expressed two months before by Black Kettle, one
of the principal elders of the Cheyenne's
in Denver to Governor John Evans and Colonel John W. Chivington,
head of the Colorado volunteers.
I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers
here to understand that we are for peace
and that we have made peace, that we may not
be mistaken for enemies.
The Reverend Colonel Chivington and his volunteers in Fort Lyon
troops numbering more than 700 heavily armed men
slaughtered 105 women and children, and 28 men.
A US flag presented by President Lincoln in 1863
to the Black Kettle in Washington DC
flew from a pole above the elder's lodge
on that gray dome.
The people had been assured they would be protected by the flag.
By mid 1865, the Cheyenne and Arapaho people
had been driven out of Colorado territory.
There was a trip we took once, and we all
hid from the street's eyes and townspeople.
You wouldn't believe we were this nation's children
in the poem.
Toby is sick.
Closely, he looks after his shadow.
Yes, he is Indian.
He hides and tends the shape of his face in a mirror of Red
and Bill's Cafe in La Junta.
He is impossible to talk with them,
his frozen tongue is frantic with prayer.
He wants to trust.
VA doctors tell him not to worry, that's his problem.
His cough is not the final blow, but the glass wall stares
so closely, makes him afraid.
Closely, Toby tends his shadow.
Conquest reach Nevada, a warrior chief
was assassinated by the cavalry.
Cut into stew in pieces, fed to other chiefs,
and a treaty was signed.
They'll show him.
Ask the pilots and the porn.
Violence is even beautiful, mastery of pain
is crucial to this work.
A senator did not need to hawk biblical phrases,
it was all ordained and certain.
They clamored for salvation, those stalwart victims
sent as messengers already avengers for running justice
to Colorado.
In the VA age, you can't be anything,
but alien to the combat soldiers.
If you don't know the glaze and sour sweat,
all Billy would talk about was going
to Kansas City and freedom.
Arkansas River is turgid and sorrowful blood,
I point that out to McGuire, but he doesn't listen.
His nights are bad dreams--
not always, but lately.
The VA psychologist tells him to tell them.
'They tried to frighten us with their madness,
but we know better.'
Billy wasn't always alien.
Finally, he listens.
'Look, Billy, stories are as reliable as those river stones.
They were fierce, Billy.'
Atrocious, shiny blades glistening in the cold sun.
You could smell their sour sweat.
As we walk back, he tells me his secret plan.
'Head east for Kansas, make arrows, send word to the IRA."
And then the last one.
"Scholasticism and intellectualism
have been barriers to emotion.
No wonder there is such a fear of women, children, blood,
and anger.
Control them, and the poem.
Anger meant nothing to them, not even as intellectual exercise.
Their scholars set them away from it,
and deemed that they should be systematic, exclusive,
and so deliberate that their intellect became
foreign to them.
They were frightened by emotion.
The sheer joy of being men, of being children
was no longer theirs.
They feared women.
Their scholars deemed-- no, ordained
that they would be trivial, and as their blood diminished.
But yes, they could have been important.
They should have seen the thieves stealing their most
precious treasure--
their compassion, their anger, their compassion, their anger."