Photograph by Richard Foulser / Trunk Archive
For the third season of climate podcast As She Rises, poets lend their voices to an urgent cause: the rapidly drying Colorado River. Here, read all six poems commissioned for the new season, hosted by activist and Intersectional Environmentalist founder Leah Thomas.
After Sacred Water
by Kinsale Drake
after Sacred Water
I.
we inherit:
every gathering pool a blessing
formed by careful hands each monsoon
a heartbeat turquoise vein
the sound of underwater
brimmed with mosses
here laps the quiet tide of
II.
in the summers we would flock to my great-aunt’s
swimming hole down the canyon
dizzy from the jumbled journey in a truck bed
poke at the tadpoles squirming in the red clay
my mother watched from orchard shade
she had been down here many years before
with her sisters her brothers
picking apples, following the bend
of the river leading the goats to the wayside to drink
now the water glooms
with cow manure uranium
we trace the mud with our eyes
watch the petroglyphs stretch in the shadows
miss the feeling of the sun wicking river from our skin
III.
in 1956/ the glen canyon dam began construction/ with an explosion/
was hit with a demolition blast keyed/ by the push of a button/
in the oval office/ the bottom of the canyon/ dotted by navajo/
ute/ paiute footprints/
still cooling/ the explosion/ a scar in the earth still aching
with uranium mines/ yellowcake/ yellow corn/ tumbled
Untitled
by Coleen Kaska
I run freely. I belong to no one.
The mother earth chose me to run freely. I belong to no one.
For the earth and its beings, we are all as one a unit. I have carved my way under my mother. No one can see me making small and big channels. I can run freely, splashing the sides of the canyon wall, running freely. I make my mother earth look beautiful, blue green and the clear crystal blue water running freely.
I belong to no one. I am so useful in many ways.
I quench thirst for the animals, the plants, the trees, and human beings.
If I should become contaminated, I will contaminate all living things that I come across running freely. I need protection. I am a living thing running freely.
Monsoon Musings
by Amber McCrary
Fill me with your water
I see your gray clouds from afar
We aren’t scared
Yet celebratory
Your gray clouds, moving fast but not violent
Desert winds increase
As our hearts beat with excitement
This undulation of drops
Come fast as they leave
We wait all year for you
Celebrate around your arrival
Olla’s hollow for your yearly presence
We all muse into your monsoon
Dance for hours
Sing with throats uncollapsing
The sand dances for you in this stiff air
Fill us with your language
Fill us with your breath
Tell us you will come back
Then we will celebrate until the next time
Remember you as our muse
Remember you as our life
our love
The Salton Sea
by Adriana Torres Ceja
Not deserted, not dead nor dying
Instead
We Are the life, hope, and responsibility
That she needs now
More than ever
Without proactive action and results
She continues to bleed to cry
To dry
Breathing her tears in
And her cries for help out
Toxicities that leaves the lungs of our children and elders
In substantial danger
Existing health disparities that are now only widened for us
Us who want to see her succeed and safe
//
We’ve made her
We’ve drained her
Now we must take care of her
Pulling Down the Clouds
by Ofelia Zepeda
Ñ-ku’ibadkaj ’ant ’an old g cewagi.
With my harvesting stick I will hook the clouds.
’Ant o ’i-waññ’io k o ‘i-hudiñ g cewagi.
With my harvesting stick I will pull down the clouds.
Ñ-ku’ibadkaj ’ant o ’i-siho g cewagi.
With my harvesting stick I will stir the clouds.
With dreams of distant noise disturbing his sleep,
the smell of dirt, wet, for the first time in what seems like months.
The change in the molecules is sudden,
they enter the nasal cavity.
He contemplates that smell.
What is that smell?
It is rain.
Rain somewhere out in the desert.
Comforted in this knowledge he turns over
and continues his sleep,
dreams of women with harvesting sticks
raised toward the sky.
Un Radio Pierde Su Señal
by Maria Cisneros
las flores
de los laureles
parecían algodones
como los que
mi mama
Remojaba
en aceite de olivo
y enrollaba con ruda
para mis dolores
de oídos
se escuchaban tantos
cantos distintos
desde la huerta
¡RADIO PARAISO!
un paraíso en el desierto
algunas canciones
salvajes y urgentes
¡DISFRUTALO MIENTRAS PUEDES!
Otras
tiernas y brumosas–
un latido de corazón
¡ESTO SI ES VIDA!
los limones
y las naranjas
brillaban como estrellas
en los árboles–
las estrellas de antes
cuando apenas extendía
mis raíces hacia lo más profundo
de La Tierra
del Desierto
que me robo el corazon
cuando apenas era niña
incesante las canciones
a todas horas del dia
¡RADIO PARAISO!
¡CONCURSE Y GANE SU DISCO DE SONRISAS!
y de repente–
Estática
Y
silencio
ningún movimiento frantico
de antena
de gancho de fierro
regresaba la estación
paraíso perdido
señal perdida
si pudiera perderme
también para siempre
en un sueño
lo haría
Listen to the new season of As She Rises here.
