215
Carolyn McCormack

Someone somehow thought 215 was OK
Someone somehow didn´t think they mattered
It´s hard to understand how, why, and when the hurt began
  1534
The year that he thought it was OK to take land that wasn´t his
The year he also thought it was OK to kidnap the people on that land
That he took that wasn´t his
   1831
The year they thought it was OK to take children that weren´t theirs
And they thought it was OK to beat and arrest the parents who cried
Who fought for their babes, lost to them forever, who now in unmarked graves
   150 years
As early as the age of three
They thought it was OK to take gentle little children
Haul them off in cattle trucks never to be seen again
Unbelievably inhumane
   139
 139 schools housing monsters who preyed on angels
¨The final solution to the Indian problem!¨
That´s how they justified physical, spiritual, and emotional abuse
Piercing tongues repeatedly with needles for speaking a language they used
Bathing children in toxic chemicals to lighten their skin
Electrical shocks, cages, burning of hands
They thought none of these atrocities were sins
1996 the last door closed for good.  It was over
  
It wasn´t over. It will never be over
A complicated portrait of a community struggling to heal each other from a horrific past
With courage, spiritual strength, and class
215 little bodies that they thought didn´t matter.
They did matter.