Ricky Blue Sky didn’t know he was poor
until the French missionaries told him.
They offered his family food, shelter
and an education but they took away
his chief and tribal unity.
Mother lived at the mission
but father wandered the outskirts
in a drunken stupor.
No more tales of the great spirit,
no more medicine man and native rituals.
“Pagan practices,” the kind sisters said
so dances around the fire were almost forgotten
but Ricky Blue Sky wanted to go home.
The missionaries served a better table
but the crucified Christ scared him
the sacrifice too great.
Billy preferred the love of his brothers
who tumbled with him in the sand,
pushing him into the cacti
making him strong.
Learning to defend himself
was better than carrying the burden
of guilt from a stranger.
"How poor is too poor?" he wondered
when he ran out of the mission school
to play with his tribal brothers along the prairie.
They chased rabbits and danced
with their ancestors around the campfire
never to return to the haven
offered by the missionaries
who expecte him
to give up his traditions,
to read and write and to believe
in a savior who despised his ways
and demanded he be molded
to a white man's image.
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