Lame Deer's Vision Poem by Robert Charles Howard

High atop the mountain
A boy crouched alone in the vision pit – waiting.
Raising his red stone pipe to the four directions
He sent clouds of willow bark smoke
Skyward toward his ancestors.

Naked beneath his star blanket he wept a man’s cry –
Crying for a vision to come
That his people may live!
Chanting with eyes fast shut he waited and prayed.

First came the cries of the wind,
Then the whisper of trees.
Birds swooped and circled about him.
He shook his rattle crying,
“Tunkashila, grandfather spirit, help me.”

A voice spoke in the call of a bird,
“Your sacrifice will make you
Wikasa Wakan, medicine man.
We are the winged ones and we are your brothers.”

In a swirling cloud his great grandfather came and spoke,
Blood dripping from the hole
Where a white soldier’s bullet had found his chest,
“You will take my name, Tahka Ushte, Lame Deer.”
The new man on the mountain rejoiced.

Quietly entering the vision pit,
Kind Old Chest placed a hand on Lame Deer’s shoulder,
“Four days have passed, it is time.”
And led Tahka Ushte down to the valley.