the message

the message

Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.
Let who you are ring out and resonate

in every word and every deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There’s no sidestepping your own being

or your own responsibility.
What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppance.
You become your own message.
You are the message.

Mitakuye Oyasin.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,

Leonard Peltier

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I found this wonderful poem on a website dedicated to increasing awareness of the situation of Leonard Peltier, who has been imprisoned for many years now.

It is widely accepted that Leonard should be free, that his case has been a travesty of justice, yet another incident of a person wrongly held captive.

In 1999, Leonard Peltier’s memoir was published—”Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance” (St. Martin’s Press). The work received wide acclaim. As a result, the European Parliament approved a resolution calling for Peltier to be freed and France’s former First Lady Danielle Mitterand—president of the French human rights organization, France Libertés—also called for the release of Leonard Peltier.

Editor Harvey Arden said, “Leonard Peltier’s powerful memoir, a Native American spiritual testament, will shake the conscience of the nation… and the world. It’s a flaming arrow aimed at the circled wagons of American injustice.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls it: “A deeply moving and very disturbing story of a gross miscarriage of justice and an eloquent “cri de coeur” of Native Americans for redress and to be regarded as human beings with inalienable rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution… We pray that it does not fall on deaf ears. America owes it to herself.”