Anti-colonial mantras vandalized
On the sides of dilapidated reservation homes
Along the Veterans Memorial Highway
Skeletal wild horses stalking the open plain
Golden shrubland into arid coniferous forest
Littered with burn scars and lifeless obelisks
The pointed horns of snow-sheeted mountains
Volatile and bubbling with the anger
Of ancient gods concealed therein
Humming the ambient melody of the understory
Connected by a fungal leitmotif
The forest tightens and writhes
Yearning for its vacant caretaker
And the first primordial beast domesticated
In the ancestral heartland of all stories
Now the earth whinnies in its saddle and reins
While we mercilessly dig our spurs into the neck
Soon all will turn gray and silent
While the last ash slowly falls