Herbert Nehrlich - His Birthday

Like the boy that he was
he sat under the tree,
watched the warriors and squaws
and the one called Dundee.

They were set to attack
at the little Big Horn
on the day he'd come back
and the day he was born.

He was grown now, a man,
and in awe of all life,
though the blood was Cheyenne
a Comanche his wife.

As was custom they'd run
at the hour of dawn,
bearing arrow and gun
sharpened tomahawks drawn.

Like the warrior he was
he sat under the tree,
watching children and squaws
and his father, Dundee.

Then he slumped to the ground
where he slept like a child,
and there wasn't a sound
in the world of the wild.

As he slept through his day
not a soul could recall
what old Custer would say
if his soldiers should fall.

And he dreamed of a cake
in his honour to mark
his own birth near the lake,
so far back, in the dark.

But, as fate had decreed
when the battle began
a horrendous stampede
killed them all, to a man.

At the little Big Horn,
where he rested and slept
where the boy had been born
sat a squaw. And she wept.

Herbert Nehrlich

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-birthday/