back to future-possible | rat haus
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[The following speaks to the current struggles of all Peoples whose
cultures, lands, and lives are threatened by "progress." I honor the People
of the Dine'h and Hopi Nations and give thanks for the art of a
brave-hearted Woman, Pamela Escarsega.]
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               AFTER THE COAL RUSH

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               Time has followed us
               to this precipice,
               this grand and precarious perch,
               this harsh and rugged land,
               marked by cactus and juniper,
               and we are forced into thought,
               knees held tight to the heart,
               looking out over
               broken holy lands.

               Time stills
               drawing this moment,
               for now,
               into eternity.

               The sage-filled air embraces us
               with the spirit of wise and
               ancient ones.
               They are patient as we try
               to understand, and
               gently laugh as our
               questions prevent
               any possibility of knowing.

               "The way is hard and dangerous,"
               they tell us,
               "and only the strong will survive,
               only the humble."

               In the distance we hear
               the heart break,
               oozing crimson red,
               mother's moans
               in the wretched winter march
               three hundred bare feet
               miles from here
               to the Bosque Redondo,
               Carson's men with their rifles
               at the children's heads,
               forcing the people
               far from their country.

               We hear the endless echoing,
               waves of pain reverberating
               off scarlet-veined canyon walls.
               Testimony-
               to battles fought
               and being fought.
               Testimony-
               to treaties written;
               treaties broken.
               Testimony-
               to colonial terrorism.
               Testimony-
               to militant imperialism.
               Testimony to mad man's decree
               Manifest Destiny
               the inherent right
               to genocide?

               Time stills,
               and we hear the truth,
               whispered relentlessly,
               in ever widening circles
               it will never go away
               no matter how many
               European years ago;
               the blood has stained
               this mystical Dine and Hopi land.

               We are drawn here by the
               haunting eyes of elders
               women holding strong
               even unto death
               (they have known death).
               And even now, down the wash,
               sheep are carried off,
               as children's hungry faces
               peep from behind
               wide and colorful skirts,
               their hunger prevailing
               through the promises of hope
               and offers of aid.

               "The white man's promises
               mean nothing to us,"
               a young AIM warrior scowls
               straight to our face.

               We have traveled from ignorance,
               bred and raised by a deadly,
               soul-numbing machinery
               that tells us,
               we should have
               everything, but
               here in the purifying
               scorch of the ever-beating sun,
               there is no escaping the
               dried bones of reality.

               The mother's rich veins
               exposed black seams
               coal changed to
               dollar signs in the
               eyes of the unseeing
               opened wounds
               left to bleed what once
               was seen as wasteland
               now fought for with a
               capitalistic vengeance
               called "progress" and the
               tools of war are many.

               At grandma's hogan
               the fire boils water,
               onions and potatoes,
               a little sheep's fat
               circles the pot, ever
               stirred with the thought,
               there'll be no meat
               because Washington's law
               calls reduction
               the sane approach;
               but, the wise women know
               it is nothing less than
               a state of siege.

               And even those who come to help
               with open arms leave with
               bags clutched tightly-
               cedar and sage to burn
               at parties for urban friends,
               and secretly they know,
               they have come to find
               their center, they
               so desperately believe
               can be stolen from them.

               And back in their hometowns,
               and on long distance telephones,
               they knock each other down,
               to see who can be
               the most "red-like",
               whose feathers and beads,
               burnt offerings
               call out the loudest,
               never stopping to see,
               it's all gone wrong again.
               The mountain has become a
               battleground of helping egos
               the good they can do
               diminished by the hour,
               as some struggle to be
               the first,
               the best,
               the most well-known
               white boy on the rez.

               Time has followed us here,
               in this drought-stricken desertland,
               our sweat-humbled eyes catch
               one,
               single
               bolt
               of lightning
               strike above the Sundance arbor,
               and as the rains pour,
               in answer to the people's prayers,
               we remember,
               that not by Cortes' quest for gold,
               or Carson's campaign of terror,
               not by Washington's laws,
               not even by those
               "At Play in the Fields of the Lord,"
               will the sweet fires of justice
               be quenched -forever.

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               Pam Escarcega, 7/93