dharma arts
Haiku to haiga to bricolage
originally published as photo-haiga in Chrysanthemum 31 October 2023
protect all children
a thousand crickets my two hands harmonize a Jizo Garden
treaty people
Listen to long grass whisper of dead warriors our past underfoot
It’s Indigenous People’s Day, and let’s hope there are no greeting cards to commemorate it. The other 364 days of the year are indigenous people’s days too. In the spirit of named days and acts of contrition, I read “38” by Layli Long Soldier, about the 38 men hanged by Lincoln for the Sioux Uprising. Rise up or starve; either way you lose.
The poet uses the word ‘abrogated’ to describe the successive treaties that forced the hand of so many peoples. Abrogate is a nice round word. It wears stately black judicial robes, is paunchy, distant and insubstantial as a cloud. It means ‘broken’, but that word is too sharp, pointy, visual, visceral. We all wanna be treaty people. Are we?
