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Addressing this please, to
eligible ladies of the family
Gramma is at the age of eight nine this year,
Now, this to other cultures would come and go,
Inevitable passing of time and circumstances flow.
In order to educate you younger women,
Who have been educated and versed at the university,
To whom an understanding of day and past history
The Ponca tribal way to you may be a mystery.
There were old ways Gramma knows and practiced
Truthfully as carefully as any of your own religions.
They were the ways she knows, we did not,
You are learning of them now, see to it, not forgot.
Sifting around, I'm watching her as she eliminates
One by one the possible candidate for matriarch.
I know I should be serious and not laugh about the race,
Of runners who are lost as to the goal and where is the place?
She didn't disregard my taking the position, work without hire,
Volunteer! too bad, too bad, artist daughter is lost in the clouds.
Narrowed I, my eyes, and carefully observed the position,
I'm out of here, no, no, I will not, can not, listen.
Come to me you ladies of youth ask all about Picasso
I'm willing to share, circles, squares, cones and brush.
I say, I will not cook for another feast, honor another guest
Work from four a.m. until long past dusk at best.
I do love every beauty of my people and their days
Catch and copy with boldness the greatest to smallest.
I know my aunts of old cooked, served, until they dropped,
Given nothing but mark on their forehead when they stopped.
Please forgive my softly chuckling, at the ring around the rosy,
While Gramma sifts and analyses your wealth, and strengths.
She could care less that some of you will fight for the title,
So much the better for selection this coveted, invisible, metal.
There is no war within my soul against that half of me, white,
Care not that all about is a ocean, a sea of churning ambition,
Waiting for some gentle maiden so innocently to step into its water,
Accepting lance, unknowingly willing to accept, giving no quarter.
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