i don't want to sound like a broken record
maybe i need a more creative way to tell this story
but from wind river canyon (shoshone land) and tensleep
rocks from the cambrian, precambrian, triassic periods
from thermopolis, the famous hot springs sold to congress in 1897 by chief washakie,
with the one caveat that 1/4 of the springs be always reserved for public use
(congress had been pressuring the tribes to sell for years, you know)
from the black hills carved with those four leaders (but whose leaders? who?)
to that towering deviled rock, rising 1280 feet off the high plains
from the bighorns to buffalo
and keyhole to custer (are we really still naming things for this man?)
i hear faint voices in the breeze, and i join in, bewildered, ashamed
this land is my land, this land is your land
well i don't know much about forced migration, gentrification,
measles and casinos and drug cartels
the manifold ways in which debt is atoned for, or forgotten
after all, who owns the colorado river?
but my heart aches for the blood in the soil,
the scarlet that stains my feet seeping up from our given, good earth
