I am a great bald eagle.  I’ve soared through the heavens for countless ages, over landscapes carefully arranged and placed by the Creator, landscapes once pristine, peaceful, and of magnificent beauty.  I watched as strangers arrived here and tried to possess land that did not, could not, belong to them.  I saw them slay the inhabitants, people who had learned to live in harmony with the mountains, rivers, great animal herds in a way so as to preserve the creation over which they held stewardship.

Intruders arrogated to themselves control of this nation over which I fly, and slaughtered any who opposed them.  Those who could not, did not contest them were sent to arid dungeons of deserts; places that were of no attraction; of no wealth.  I’ve soared over countless swathes of prairie where bleached bones lay desiccated among ancient and rotted remains of native settlements.  Men do not know that even the majestic eagle dares to weep.

                    Somewhere in the Distance

Somewhere in the distance, on this bleak and lonely plain

‘Neath midnight skies of silver stars, a lone coyote’s refrain

Drifts along the prairie breeze in melancholy notes

Heard by none but ranch hands lying watchful ‘neath their coats.

A tumbleweed soon pauses from his trek which knows no end

And sighs the softest whisper to the chilly prairie wind

Perhaps a new direction on the lonely breeze to go

He’s roamed this land and knows of all its secrets high and low.

A full moon rises into view as ancient ghosts appear

Of weathered buildings, once a town, now dead for scores of years

Rusted hinges moan their tales as doors swing to and fro,

The gallows rots to dust as did her victims long ago.

The piercing call of Navajo is heard here nevermore

His tepee warm no longer stands, his woman at the door.

But why has man since disappeared where once such life abound’?

And why is no one living on this prairie to be found?

Perhaps if we could learn the song the coyote sadly sings

Or secrets told by tumbleweeds, or rotted doors that swing

Perhaps we might then understand why only ghosts remain

To ever haunt ‘neath midnight moon this bleak and lonely plain.

                                                                                                                                Mike Kitchens

So it began.  The birth of a monstrosity that would grow to devour the world over which we great birds fly.  They had the temerity to appoint me to occupy a position I did not seek.  My image adorns every significant representation of their claims of ownership.  They shame me. They own nothing. When they pass through that portal, the land they had claimed is still beneath me.  Had they truly owned the land of this nation I watch, they would have taken it with them.  They did not; they could not. They own nothing.