THE WILDS OF INDIAN TERRITORY

In the history of our country

Is a story of exploration

By a people newly emigrant

Ignorant of land and species.

Across the prairies and the Rockies

Along the waterways beside them

Watched by people of great multitude

Old, with ancient understanding

Watched the people newly emigrant.



Out of greed and want and wonder

Began this early expedition

To be known and be recorded

By a president known as Jefferson.

Sent explorers to the mountains

To the valleys and the rivers

To know plants-the vegetation

To know animals prolific.



Natives too were mighty curious

Never seeing white or black man

And desirous of ammunition

To take buffalo the easier

And make their homes more prosperous.



So this gentleman, this Jefferson

Third president of our nation

Roamed himself, child of the woodlands,

Roamed himself, child of plantations.

Child of the Virginia Piedmont.

Lover of nature and of all things natural

Wrote out the declaration

"That all men are created equal."



So this Thomas sent his secretary

To the wilds of Indian territory.

First to train him in the sciences.

Lewis studied plants and animals

And celestial navigation.

Lewis himself had been a soldier

And chose his friend and army captain,

A staid and steady one, a loyal one.

All through lifetime Clark was for him.

Named his first son after Lewis,

Meriwether Lewis Clark the chosen.

Took his friend on expedition

Took his friend on "The Discovery."



Listen to these ancient histories

Of the Indians and their nations

On this continent so sacred-

First to know the sacred mountains

First to know the sacred rivers

The first to hunt the first to gather

To plant the bean, squash corn and sunflower

To dig the roots and use the herbs here

For their health and for their pleasure.

Imagine endless generation

Loving earth and sky and water

Loving animal and kinsman

Before the foreign ships had landed

With the earliest invaders.



Vikings first before the Spanish

Then the Spanish, French and English.

Who were these with rifle ready,

Who were these with canon loaded,

To the people of the ancient

No beginning and no ending?