May 24th Suckahanna

 

May 24^th   Suckahanna

 

The old woman sat on soft warm skins on the floor

Quietly sewing buckskin clothes.

And dreamed of her life many, many years ago.

When she had been but young.

Timeless

 

The crackle and sparking of the small fire,

Was the only sound in the tent.

It was dark and late, soft snow

Had covered the ground outside into

Silence.

 

It had been a busy day for the tribe.

A day just like the old carefree times.

There had been games, and ceremony; a betrothal.

Children running around, shouting,

Braves.

 

The Powhatan had been a great people

But the war brought by the white men;

And illness – diseases brought by the white men.

Had ravaged, decimated and changed

Everything.

 

They had been forced back and back

Into the mountains,

Many had starved and died in battle,

And now they were not where they belonged

Not home.

 

But Suckahanna smiled.

It was all too late for her to care about any more.

She smiled at the memory of a man from eighty years before.

He often came to her in the quiet late hours.

Firelight.

 

She could see his face, his wrinkles, his grey beard.

His strange foreign ways; his gentleness.

His love of seeds and plants, foraging for nuts and seedlings

His mysterious exotic life as gardener to the King.

England

 

She had not seen him for sixty years and more

Husbands had come and gone for her.

She had children, grandchildren and her respect.

Had had to be regained when he had left. It had

Eventually

 

She could see his face in the glow embers of the fire.

She remembered the joy, the time they had been together

He had been her Eagle then he had flown and gone...

Her Tradescant,

Her John