Tahana White Poetry Award, 1994. Published in Circle of Reflections, 1994 & Council of Indian Education, 1995.

         AMERICAN HORSE

         by Dorothy Blackcrow Mack

                    Fastest runner in Nebraska, Joe
                   American Horse, cousin-in-law,
                   Oglala Sioux Tribal President,
                   served the People humbly and fairly.

                   We sit outside Ethel Blackcrow's home
                   in Potato Creek housing cluster
                   while a Native American Church
                   ceremony ends in the basement.

                   Ethel's the keeper of the buttons
                   for South Dakota, trusted elder,
                   cured of cancer by Peyote Man
                   way back when carrying her first child.

                   On her living room wall hangs a big
Smithsonian photo of seated
American Horse, flanked by two wives,
his five sons behind like bodyguards.

                   Ethel's perched on her mom's buckskin knee,
dressed European style in lace 
and pleated calico, unlike her
stepsister; still, braids hang to her waist.

                   A name like American Horse was
earned in battle by grabbing a dead
soldier's army-brand horse, or bringing
the People the whole army camp herd.

                   Proud name passed down four generations:
church elder and healer; long distance
runner and leader; may the next kin
bring honor to American Horse.