Don't try to match
wits with this lady
Or quietly be thinking of anything shady.
She'll catch you up like a rabbit in a trap
And you will feel like such a sap.
If you have a creative thought,
Her benevolence can be bought.
Eyes with bear light gleams,
Bouncing back ideas like in reams.
What heavy load these shoulders carried
Yes, and before she was married.
Her mother divorced, the child at tender age,
Grew up knowing of loses page.
A tiny person with body so slight
Never stepped away from a fight
Her wisdom took her to the courts
In a job of those social works.
Her cousin in war and fell
Leaving him with shrapnel
Pulled him to safety to stave
And stayed with him to the grave.
“I’m proud to be Ponca,” she said
But other of different tribes with love she fed.
None did she turn away and saw
So many affectionately call her “Grandma”
True her ways were often more than grumpy
And, often, her counsel made us lumpy
Still we were able to profit
From her sage and wit.
Yes, Velma's tribe was of the Ponca and Shawnee
But she had a grandmother, full Cherokee.
That one was called Mary Ross,
Mary's mother's name in Cherokee we have lost.
Chilocco was her second mother land
And possibly where she learned to take a stand
The learned military rules and regulations.
Played out her discipline for us and our gyrations.
