john trudell, “bone days”
from: bone days, 2001
“Bone Days, bone days
The great search for truth
Every meaning has a meaning
Dark and light have their reasons
Live and learn are the seasons
Bone days, bone days
With all that’s left motions of everydayness
and thoughts that won’t leave
Leaving behind another sameness
Bone days when all that’s gone brings life to your knees
You don’t know what to pray
So you keep making please
Bone days when all that’s gone brings life to your knees
Bone days
You don’t know what to pray
So you keep making believe
Bone days, bone days
What love has to do
Could be no more than karma paybacks
or karma rewards
Parts of wants, parts of swords
Bone days in the great need
There is no more enough everywhere
Chasing the chase
Holding and taking play rough
Bone days the promise is the line
Someone want to hear
But if the truth is seeing and
nobody’s living here
Bone days, bone days
Covering the night and
The tears of the stars
And the way memories run
Every ending has just begun
Bone days
The promise is the light
Someone’s wanting heal
Bone days
What if the truth is seen
And nobody’s living here
”
A fascinating man who seems to have put himself in the middle of major political, social and artistic events involving the struggle for Native American rights from the mid 1960’s til his death in 2015. But I want to put “Bone Days” front and center for your perusal. His spoken delivery is so searchingly relaxed propelled by poetic unanswerables. Hypnotic talk, wily music, wilderness imagination peyote ceremony pilgrimage wandering!
Ms. Duras
“ “When the past is recaptured by the imagination, breath is put back into life.”
”