Sometimes when I sleep,
I hear buffalo coming,
Sometimes when I sleep,
Tatanka sings me songs.
Hey yo hey yaaaaah.
Sometimes when I dream,
I see dragonflies flying.
Sometimes when I dream,
Tusweca sings me songs.
Hey ya hey yaaaah.
Sometimes when I wake,
I feel the earth moving.
Sometimes when I wake,
Maka Unci sings me songs.
Hey ya hey yaaaaah.
Sometimes when I walk,
I smell the river tumbling.
Sometimes when I walk,
Mini Sose sings me songs.
Hey ya hey yaaaah.
Tatanka: A buffalo and an ancient relative
Tusweca: A dragonfly nad is born in water
Maka Unci: The earth and our grandmother
Mini Sose: The Missouri River and means turbulent water
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Lois Red Elk is an enrolled member of the Ft. Peck Sioux in Montana, with roots from the Isanti on her mother’s side, and the Hunkpapa and Ihanktonwa from her father, who is descended from the Sitting Bull family. Raised in her traditional culture, she is a quill and bead worker, a traditional dancer and an advocate for cultural preservation and practice.
During her earlier years, living in Los Angeles, she was a T.V. talk show host at KCOP-TV, an FM radio host at Pasadena City College, and a technical advisor for many Hollywood film productions. She has been a member of Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for forty years while working for all the major networks and Hollywood studios in film and television.
She enjoys writing poetry, prose and children’s stories and has been published in many Native American anthologies and poetry magazines. As a freelance writer she worked for her tribe’s Native newspaper and authored a weekly column titled “Raised Dakota.”
Presently she is on the adjunct faculty at Ft. Peck Community College, Montana, teaching cultural arts courses she developed, including Traditional Plants, Domestic Arts, Animals Significant to Dakota Culture, and Porcupine Quill Work.
"Sometimes Odowan" was published in her latest collection of poetry, Dragonfly Weather.
