High atop the mountain <br />A boy crouched alone in the vision pit – waiting. <br />Raising his red stone pipe to the four directions <br />He sent clouds of willow bark smoke <br />Skyward toward his ancestors. <br /> <br />Naked beneath his star blanket he wept a man’s cry – <br />Crying for a vision to come <br />That his people may live! <br />Chanting with eyes fast shut he waited and prayed. <br /> <br />First came the cries of the wind, <br />Then the whisper of trees. <br />Birds swooped and circled about him. <br />He shook his rattle crying, <br />“Tunkashila, grandfather spirit, help me.” <br /> <br />A voice spoke in the call of a bird, <br />“Your sacrifice will make you <br />Wikasa Wakan, medicine man. <br />We are the winged ones and we are your brothers.” <br /> <br />In a swirling cloud his great grandfather came and spoke, <br />Blood dripping from the hole <br />Where a white soldier’s bullet had found his chest, <br />“You will take my name, Tahka Ushte, Lame Deer.” <br />The new man on the mountain rejoiced. <br /> <br />Quietly entering the vision pit, <br />Kind Old Chest placed a hand on Lame Deer’s shoulder, <br />“Four days have passed, it is time.” <br />And led Tahka Ushte down to the valley.<br /><br />Robert Charles Howard<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lame-deer-s-vision/
