For Little Feather

By Joergen Ostensen

10.1.19

This poem is about a water protector, named Michael Giron aka Little Feather, who was jailed without trial following his involvement in the protests at Standing Rock. He was freed on September 25th. Red Fawn Fallis and Michael Markus aka Rattler are among others similarly being held in cages as political prisoners in the United States.

On the morning I heard that you were free

A smile spread across my face

As I saw a picture of you in sunshine

Returned now to the world

Of wind and rivers and sky and stars

The world you love so much

So very, very much that you risked everything

By standing in the way of the black snake

Fighting back against their power

The power of M16's and tear gas

Of water hoses blasting a million icicles onto the razor wire

In the videos I watched in the safety of home

The safety of being 17

The safety of my skin

The safety of not being there with you

As you and so many beautiful people

Stood in the way

Of the power held in the centuries of oppression

Under those precious North Dakota skies

On the banks of a river that brings life to millions.

On the morning I heard that you were free

I thought about reading your name

On my cell phone for the first time

How I wanted to smash history and the president and the walls of the prison where you were caged

I thought about writing your name in my notebook

So you wouldn't be lost to me in the invisibility cloak they are using to hide you from our consciousness

I thought about spray painting FREE LITTLE FEATHER

On the windows of the monolithic TD Bank across the street

And writing the length of your sentence with a dry erase marker

On the white board in my theology class

I thought about all the times I tried to bring you up in conversations

These my little resistances to your invisibility.

On the morning I heard that you were free

I thought about your sister Red Fawn

And your brother Rattler

And I thought about all the others in the cages

Fighting back just by surviving

I thought about just how truly beautiful each and every one of you are

How brave and strong and necessary

Is your resistance

As you stand up for the world

For the trees, the birds, the wolves, the mountains

The water

I thought about how you stood there and said after five hundred years

Enough is enough

To the white men with their guns and governments and gavels

I thought about how much you inspire us

When we see how you triumphed

Over your addiction and your own fear

By joining the beautiful people

At Standing Rock

And together fought back

Igniting a dream in all of us

A dream that becomes possible to realize

In the joy of hope

A hope you brought into the world just by surviving.

On the day I heard that you were free

I thought of all the work that needs to be done

All the stories that must be told

All the people who need to be freed

The wonderfully revolutionary presence we must build

To replace the pipelines, the cages, the inhumanity

And even though there are tears in my eyes

A smile spreads across my face.