Ripples Through Time

I sit in my canoe
Thinking of you
My Mentor
My teacher
A man drifting in calm
Waters of the present
Looking across the ripples
Of the past.
You taught me the blessings
Of Smoke
Steaming Cedar branches
And Sweat
You taught me how to return
To our Mother
Hold her sacred
Center
and
Still
Oneself as the
Ghosts of the Buffalo
Silently graze on by
As shimmering ancestors
Follow
Singing their stories
To you
Creating a new narrative
That will ripple
Out into the Future–
For nothing created
Is ever truly destroyed.