THE BIG GULP

for Standing Rock and the Water Protectors

I drank a big glass of prayer

the other day.

It took five gulps

to get it down.

When the glass was empty

I was full,

and my throat 

was clear and clean,

and my voice, my voice

wasn’t mine anymore,

so it sang

like a river

liminal with light,

where all voices meet

as one tongue that snakes

safely and harmoniously

through ancient

and ancestral lands.