In April of 2019, I led a youth and adult delegation from the local congregation I serve on a service-learning trip to Pine Ridge, South Dakota. We engaged in a year-long series of learning sessions about Native American history, with an emphasis on the history, spirituality, teachings, and practices of the Lakota people.

Our time at Pine Ridge began with a tour of important sites on the reservation. I wrote this after returning from Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre of nearly 300 Lakota people by the United States Army. I was reminded then that our interdependence transcends not only place but also time—and that in order to make a better future we must learn about and atone for the sins of the past.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses (Pine Ridge Reservation, 4.14.19)

How do you prepare

to visit the site of genocide?

Where the soil has been stained

with the blood of innocents?

If you’re Jewish, perhaps

you find a small, smooth stone

and carry it reverently

to place on the grave of

Lost Bird, infant survivor,

kidnapped and sold and displayed

like a trophy.

We remember you, you might say.

I took a walk with friends

up a steep, snowy hill

to pray,

to see the sun set,

to feel close to the Earth.

Along the muddy path

the meadowlarks trilled and chirped

from their hidden nests

amidst the dry grass

blessing the journey

with their song.

At Wounded Knee, we listened.

First to an oral history of a people who survive, told

with sage burning for purification,

eyes closed in memory of

the inherited trauma of generations.

And then,

after the stories,

to the meadowlarks.

The lost birds singing

through time

across borders

announcing the holiness

of the ground on which we stood.