Like the boy that he was <br />he sat under the tree, <br />watched the warriors and squaws <br />and the one called Dundee. <br /> <br />They were set to attack <br />at the little Big Horn <br />on the day he'd come back <br />and the day he was born. <br /> <br />He was grown now, a man, <br />and in awe of all life, <br />though the blood was Cheyenne <br />a Comanche his wife. <br /> <br />As was custom they'd run <br />at the hour of dawn, <br />bearing arrow and gun <br />sharpened tomahawks drawn. <br /> <br />Like the warrior he was <br />he sat under the tree, <br />watching children and squaws <br />and his father, Dundee. <br /> <br />Then he slumped to the ground <br />where he slept like a child, <br />and there wasn't a sound <br />in the world of the wild. <br /> <br />As he slept through his day <br />not a soul could recall <br />what old Custer would say <br />if his soldiers should fall. <br /> <br />And he dreamed of a cake <br />in his honour to mark <br />his own birth near the lake, <br />so far back, in the dark. <br /> <br />But, as fate had decreed <br />when the battle began <br />a horrendous stampede <br />killed them all, to a man. <br /> <br />At the little Big Horn, <br />where he rested and slept <br />where the boy had been born <br />sat a squaw. And she wept.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-birthday/
