by Roxanne Doty
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Left: A 1934 sketch of Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó) made by a Mormon missionary after interviewing Crazy Horse's sister, who claimed the depiction was accurate. —Wikipedia. Right: The Native American activist Leonard Peltier—convicted in 1975 for the killings of two FBI agents—was released from federal prison on Tuesday after Joe Biden commuted his sentence at the end of his presidency in January. In a statement, Peltier said that he was “finally free!” —The Guardian, February 18, 2025 |
Innocence is the weakest defense
Leonard Peltier says, it has a single voice,
can only deny, while Guilt has a thousand voices
all of them lies. They said
you were resisting imprisonment
when George Crook’s military guard killed
you with his bayonet. Some call this murder
but language and land prevail.
The old medicine man says,
You could make a lovely mountain
into a great paperweight.
Can you make the monument to you
in the Black Hills into a wild, natural mountain again?
Today, I see people still longing
for justice and facing defeat,
the lust for stolen lands
still raging, white settlers still rampant.
I hear the thousand voices of guilt.
We all need your spirit now, Crazy Horse,
you, the last great figure of resistance
who inflicted defeat on the powerful.
And we need the patience and wisdom
of Leonard Peltier, finally free.
Leonard Peltier says, it has a single voice,
can only deny, while Guilt has a thousand voices
all of them lies. They said
you were resisting imprisonment
when George Crook’s military guard killed
you with his bayonet. Some call this murder
but language and land prevail.
The old medicine man says,
You could make a lovely mountain
into a great paperweight.
Can you make the monument to you
in the Black Hills into a wild, natural mountain again?
Today, I see people still longing
for justice and facing defeat,
the lust for stolen lands
still raging, white settlers still rampant.
I hear the thousand voices of guilt.
We all need your spirit now, Crazy Horse,
you, the last great figure of resistance
who inflicted defeat on the powerful.
And we need the patience and wisdom
of Leonard Peltier, finally free.
Author’s note: This poem was inspired by William Stafford’s “Report to Crazy Horse.” Italicized quotations by Leonard Peltier are from Prison Writings, My Life is My Sun Dance.
Roxanne Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her debut novel Out Stealing Water was published by Regal House Publishing, August 30. 2022. Her first poetry collection was published by Kelsay Books in the spring of 2024. She has published stories and poems in Third Wednesday, Amethyst Review, Cloudbank, Quibble Lit, Superstition Review, Cagibi, Espacio Fronterizo, Ocotillo Review, Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, The Blue Guitar, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature, The New Verse News, International Times, Saranac Review, Gateway Review, and Reunion-The Dallas Review.
