At Wounded Knee (revised version)

Three days, and no-one comes to close my eyes.
I am as cold and quiet as a stone
on the white ground. I wait and cannot rise.

Death steals less swiftly than a bullet flies:
the ache has time to settle in the bone.
Three days, and no-one comes to close my eyes.

Snow falls and whips; the wind still rips, and cries.
Here I remain like something broken, thrown
to the white ground. I wait, and cannot rise,

nor yet lie easy, as a dead man lies,
though surely death has claimed me for his own.
Three days, and no-one comes to close my eyes.

My spirit beats its awkward wings and tries
to take the air, but, like the snow, is blown
to the white ground. I wait and cannot rise

to charge like lightning through these winter skies
with ghosts of kin who see how still I've grown
in three days. No-one comes to close my eyes.
On the white ground I wait and cannot rise.