Unknown

You are invited to join the "Invitation to Poetry" found at Abbey of the Arts here. This week’s photo is of a gravestone in the cemetery where Chief Sealth’s (who Seattle is named after) grave is found on the Suquamish reservation. There were several of these unknown graves and Christine has invited us to enter into our poetic imagination and give one of them (or several) a story. Here is mine:


Papoose strapped upon her back,
she strains against the weight.
In her heart she longs to dance
and break free toward the plains.
She cooks and works and serves her Chief
while dreams brew thoughts of life.
Now stooped and bent around the fire,
she stirs a soup of strife.

She’s been the squaw, the mother dear,
and now it seems so clear,
the stamp that’s lain across her heart
rings loudly in her ears.
She’s breathed it in and breathed it out.
It’s screamed within her mind.

Her heart, it breaks, the end is near.
She feels the loss, her own.
No one saw her in this life and
she has been alone.
She hears the word and knows it’s true
Her fate is all too clear.
From now until eternity,
she will be
UNKNOWN.