To the Children of South America Who Dream of Coming to los Estados Unidos By Susan Deer Cloud

To the children of South America I met after I was diagnosed
with breast cancer, had surgery, then radiation treatments,
to you I encountered when my roving companion and I flew
to Chile, only a few months since the last radiation beams
pierced my body and I wondered if I could roam as I once had,
still sad, saddled with fatigue, aching in my left breast now
nestled differently near my heart – to you I give that heart
because you reminded me of how I had big dreams when still
a small mountain girl of the “part Indian” kind, helped me recall
no matter how poor, hurt, afraid, and knocked down we are
the dreaming is free and maybe we can keep it.

To the Chilean children in a one room schoolhouse far out
on isolated dirt road – gratitude. To you smiling at us old
North Americans who offered to be Monday’s English lesson,
you who amazed us with a Mapuche Indian song about the life
of a shaman, so perfect when I was Mohawk, I want you to know
that since that morning my heart beats to your drum, flute,
and passionate singing. To the girl who gushed to us when
she learned we were from Nueva York, “I want to fly north
to visit the Empire State building and ride its elevator to the top,”
I am glad I could say I once had the same dream and finally
rode to the top, why I believed your dream would also come true.
To you students who painted such vivid pictures hanging on
the humble walls, your art moved me more than museum paintings.

To the children of Bolivia, sons and daughters in a land
sixty percent Indian with an Aymara Indian President, to you
in your numerous poverties on the altiplano, in the high Andes,
in dusty pueblos and cities with rebars shooting up from the never
finished adobe houses and dog shit and trash on the streets and
dumped along roads knifing across your third world country’s
surreal beauty – gratitude. To the little sister and brother
John brought to our car to meet me while their parents rustled
up gas for us in a border town, know your faces mirrored mine
when I was an unsmiling child. Boy of sweet sad searing eyes,
may your desire to come to our country be fulfilled as much
as my wish to come to yours. May you bring your sister.

To the street boys of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and Susana
who is helping you find a better life – gratitude. You made me
know that a spirit glows in everyone because despite your lives
branded by tragedies, you talked and smiled and laughed that night
John made everyone tacos and I contributed Christmas cookies
and Ferrero Rocher chocolates for dessert, poets’ cuisine. I won't

forget you understood my poem about long Indian hair on the card
I gave to each of you, will always be touched by your gifts to us. 
If only I could fly you here, show you the white peacock feather
and matchbox cars now unique muses safe in my study. Lastly,
to the child beggars of Bolivia and Peru, your upturned hands
countless as the stars, Indios similar to the desperadoes seeking
exile at the U.S./Mexico border – gratitude. Thanks to you,
every dawn I hold out my own upturned hands asking for change.