Dire Democracy
The Cracks Beneath
Miss Chipiuk climbed a podium high,
With “Democracy!” her battle cry.
She waved a ruling in the prairie breeze,
While pumpjacks bobbed beyond the trees.
“The people speak! The people choose!
No judge should tell us we can lose!”
The crowd below all stomped and cheered,
As homemade banners reappeared.
They shouted loud for “freedom” grand,
And waved cracked maps across the land.
“Referendums! Votes! Secession too!”
Though few could say precisely who.
But down the trail through prairie dust,
Where treaty flags stood firm and just,
A row of Chiefs on ponies brown
Came slowly riding into town.
Their eagle feathers swayed with grace,
As silence settled on the place.
One Chief looked up and calmly said:
“You cannot vote our Treaties dead.”
Another raised a weathered hand:
“This treaty land is treaty land.
Your ‘democratic’ prairie dream
Still flows through constitutional streams.”
Miss Chipiuk wobbled left and right,
Her high heels trembling out of fright.
For on the book beneath her feet
A widening crack split every street.
The crowd cried: “Let the people rule!”
The Chiefs replied: “The Constitution rules.”
The judge just sighed and closed the file:
“I only ruled a little while.”
So there they stood in prairie dust,
Debating what “the people” lost.
While beneath the Constitution book
The ground kept splitting… though no one looked.