Sunday, May 17, 2009

Since I began by mentioning my Aunties I'll continue on this subject by posting a poem I wrote.

My Mother and her Sisters



My mother had four sisters who liked to laugh
when they got together. Big hardy laughter
that came all the way from down deep inside.
From a place that stored both happiness and pain.
they didn’t laugh they roared.

I sometimes wonder what it was that they laughed at.
I never listened to the talk. I just loved to listen
to their laughter.

In fact the term laughter seems to constrict what
came out of these women. It doesn’t seem to capture
the hurricane force of the sound these women could
make together. Maybe female Elephants trumpeting
comes close, but not really.

This sound that still reverberates through my mind.
It makes me want to join in after all of these years—
I can still see them sitting around my aunt Helen’s
living room. Like large lionesses lounging around
in the hot sun under some large shade tree. Licking
their young and roaring.

My mother would throw her head back and let out
this incredible sound of pure unrestricted and
un-inhibited music from way down deep. It would
literally explode into the air.

That sound gave me such an amazing sense of joy
when I heard these five powerful women laughing.

I wanted to wrap myself up and roll around the floor
with that sound. I would find myself giggling
uncontrollably never knowing what they were laughing at.
You see they spoke to each other in the Lakota language.

Trying to describe them to someone seems to diminish
them. It’s just beyond my grasp. I find my mind reaching
or big words that can describe big women.

They were big in every sense of the word big. They all
tipped the high end of the scales. All together making
up at least a thousand pounds with ease. You can
safely say they loved food as well as laughing.
But even more important was their pride in being Lakota.
In the days that they had come of age this was not
acceptable –they were suppose to have been assimilated.
After all they had gone through the assimilation factory
called the Boarding school. The one place that was given
the authority to “kill the Indian to save the child.”

These women embodied the spirit of Lakota Womanhood
in the truest sense of the concept.

The new Lakota woman who was needed so our people
could survive. The kind that could grab on to the future
and push their children through its doors while retaining
as much of the Lakota philosophy and traditional beliefs
possible.

I loved each one of these women and thank them for the
gifts they gave me.

My aunt Aurelia gave me love.
My aunt Helen taught me courage.
My aunt Alberta taught me respect.
My aunt Eunice gave me wisdom. And
My mother, Marie blessed me with the
gift of love for my family.

They all showed me through their example to love and
care for our people.

So these are the gifts that I have carried through my
adult life and when times are hard they also gave me
the most beautiful gift of all and that is the ability to
laugh with out restraint. To laugh with the explosive
force that will make other people smile when they hear it.

Mary Lee Johns
Lakota

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