It all ended that bitter December day at Wounded Knee,
where the wind perpetually blew across the great frozen expanse of prairie, barren and remorseless. Eddies of snow propelled by the frigid current.
The sky, a savage blue, arcs high above, the sun’s glare merciless. The camp lies huddled, cowering against the scouring gale. The tribes people stand, frightened and cowed by the circling solders, rifles raised, eyes filled with feral hate.
The great steel snouts of cannons press forward expectantly, jackals ready for the hunt. An argument, a swift scuffle.
Then comes the sound, the awful toll of doom. The gunshot rises into the frosted air then rolls across the snow-draped plain.
A moment a terrible stillness descends. Then a rabid snarl issues from the mouth of an officer and the rifles of the solders roar to life, their first victims falling in a plume of crimson.
The tribe scatters, galloping away like frightened animals, desperate to escape the slaughterhouse. The solders fire on then without care, without compassion for these desperate human beings.
The crack of the rifles and the concussive crash of the cannons fills the air as the people crumple beneath the storm of hot lead, scattering in the barren white valley.
A few canter wildly to and fro, a useless attempt to escape the massed ranks of cavalrymen closing in, their guns blazing as they cut down the survivors. Then, abruptly a grisly vacant silence descends.
The solders leave in a procession, their shouts of triumph pursuing them on the wind. The men, women and children they have slaughtered lie strewn on the earth, their blood soiling the ermine blanket on top of which they rest.
And far away from the carnage, from the bloodied corpses, their flesh torn from bullets, in a lavish office in Washington, a tic is made on a leaf of stationary, glasses are raised in celebration. It is over.
And back at Wounded Knee fresh snow falls to earth from leaden clouds entombing the bodies in a crypt of ivory. It has ended. Everything ended that day on Wounded Knee.
Will Hodgkinson is 16 and in 10th grade at Waldorf High School, Massachusetts Bay. His poetry has been published in Off the Coast, Maine’s international poetry journal, Highlights magazine, and the Arlington Advocate. His interview with Noam Chomsky was published recently in the University of Massachusetts Breakwater Review. His interests include politics and writing.
