Poem
By Sarah Hackney
I write to you from red earth
from land that remembers footsteps
long before highways and headlines
from a woman whose ancestors learned how to stand when
the world told them to kneel
Minnesota, I see you
I see your streets filled with breath
turning to smoke in the cold air
your voices rising like drumbeats
calling the world to wake up
we know this sound
we have carried it for generations
people refusing to disappear
quietly here in Oklahoma
where many of our nations
were carried by force yet rooted
themselves again in survival
I send you more than words
I send prayers stitched with memory
our grandmothers taught us
the courage is showing up again
tomorrow, the next day, and the next
with your spirit unbroken
so hear me, relatives of the north
you are not standing alone in the snow
across the plains an indigenous woman
stands with you
our fires burn in different places
but the smoke rises to the same sky
our songs travel farther than borders
our strength was born from survival
and today, it walks beside you
when the nights grow heavy and
the world misunderstands your pain,
remember this –
we are your courage too
from Oklahoma’s red soil
to Minnesota’s frozen ground
I lift you in prayer, in resilience,
in love that refuses to fade
stand strong
stand together
the ancestors are listening
Editor’s Note: Sarah is a Choctaw/Chickasaw tribal member. She is also a board member of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women-CHAHTA. She posted this on Facebook and it is published here with permimssion.
Sarah is a Choctaw/Chickasaw tribal member. She is also a board member of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women-CHAHTA.
