In a far country is my heart
And though it calls, I cannot go
Swift as the Nightwing flies,
Which the white man calls the crow,
To the Indian Nations
Where in the lodges of the reservation
Tales are told of long ago,
In the warrior tongue still spoken,
Though many words I do not know
That my grandfather remembers
Before the endless lands were taken
And the treaties all were broken
And the Elder tribes forsaken
Westward Ho! With blood and slaughter
Came the white man like the water
Like the wave that took Atlantis
Took the sons and the daughters
Cortez came with smallpox in 1522
Washington slew the Iroquois
And Custer scalped the Sioux
Now the Red Gulags that are the reservations
Form an Archipelago
Indian islands in the American sea
From Canada to Mexico
And the shaman’s dreams
Have been all of woe
Since the surrender of Geronimo
- Irving Karchmar, © 1991
Ya Haqq!
SubhanAllah! This is amazing. This is really, really great!. Mashallah!
Salaams Irving,
A lovely poem, ma sha Allah. Eloquent and powerful.
Makes me think of the book ‘The Past is a Foreign Country’
Abdur Rahman
Beautiful poem! Are you part Native American?
Salaam Dear Brother and Sisters:
Thank you for the kind words :) I am not part Native American, except that we all come from the same human family origins, so we are all related. I have alwways had an affinity with Native American spirituality though.
Ya Haqq!
Salamaat,
Mashaallah I love it. It’s really powerful…Thank you for sharing Irving; and for a moment, I was like “wow! he is Native American! :)” not that you aint cool anyhow :)
So beautiful. And so true. Amazing how that history of exploitation is entirely forgotten except as the stuff of legends.
Thank you for the reminder, dear Irving.
Reading this poem, I thought you were part Native American. You really understand, speaking like a Native American; the poem speaks volumes of a tragedy that is still felt. I read extensively about what happened when Columbus arrived, and I cannot celebrate Columbus Day.
Instead of slaughtering the Native Americans (who were peaceful and spiritual people), we should have taken their love and care of the earth, because right now we have polluted our earth to such a degree, we could be facing a very hard future.
May Allah bless your heartfelt pen :-)
Thank you Sir for this moving tribute to the native Americans. Best, rama
[…] In a Far Country is My Heart by Irving of Darvish […]
Shukria! Why always this greed, this devastating tormenting greed. If we could just put our energies on our own spiritual path and not always try to interfere in the lives of other nations.
Rabia
So beautiful,mA!