With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather-with tears running I must say now that the tree has never bloomed. Here at the center of the world where you took me when I was young and showed the goodness and the beauty and the strangeness of the greening earth, you have said that I should make the tree to bloom. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me not for myself but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the good red road, the shielding tree!
Black Elk - Oglala Sioux
