A grey pearl and dead quartz shatter—

Captured in wet penitentiary:
strong one slows her
heart of austere wreckage.

Wet frown for the lair is real—
home to this odd solo-sex.

Dare she be unkind?
What feeds the enemy?
A riddle should be pretend.

Remember: bitch is dirt.

The Missouri Plateau
is a principle flyway for waterfowl.
On April 4th, 2016, the FAA temporarily granted
TransCanada’s request for a no-fly zone over the entire
region surrounding their Keystone I pipeline spill.

In the near gold hour
when the sky crackles with color
and each tree, anonymous in a crowd,
screeches for pebbled light,

an egret feather, and
the membrane wings of a butterfly are fused
to a vacant crest of sticks and mud
strung between a blue-
green pond
where water bugs once
threw summer shadows, but is now burned
blue-black,
and a slender stream, rimmed
in seedy grasses.

Let the spirit of a wolf
remember the wolf.

If we needed these, we did not
know it.

#nodapl #watersongs #ghostbraids #fifthcanto

they say
mni wiconi
how do you say it
my mother
in spanish says
agua de la vida
agua sagrada
her grandmother’s
people say
mni wakan
mni water
wakan
some say wakan
sacred
some say wakan
big
some say wakan
power/ful
might want to say:
sacred water
or water sacred
big water
or water big
power/ful water
water power/ful
a language tries
to dominate my mind
mama pacha
mother of time
tongued truth
wakan in lakota
waca in mayan
they have similar roots these words

in the old vibrations of the oldest of earth song languages
they really sing like water
these old earth tongues

Listen out of colonized, tongued mind
some say
there was a time
when all the tribes on turtle island
signed a common language
spoke a common language
and nations listened for the vibrations
of a word
said the spirit we know as water

with motions
with gestures
with silences
with reverences 

no matter what

same mismo
mni
agua
atl
water
clarity
vibration
end
memory

Towards Tonatiuh #24

#nodapl #watersongs #ghostbraids #sixthcanto

they have many names
but they sometimes go by trickster
they told you water in a bottle from Fiji
was better than water from your tap
they told you there is vitamin water
and smart water and eco friendly water
they told you: black water, brown
water, grey water, green water, blue-gold water

coca cola would quench your thirst
then they steal land and river
where grandmothers and their grandmothers and their grandmothers grandmothers have been singing, drinking, praying, dancing to the same waters since before they had
two legs. two hands. one heart. one face.

they sometimes trick with other names
nestle and other really tricky names
though they are the same
parties, plans, policies, partnering

then they trick you again
they put oil in your water and tell you to drink it

if you sing to the water. water remembers you
if you are thankful to the water, water
becomes is life. remember all the names
you’ve known for water.
all the places water has died. all the places water is damned.
all the places water is dying. all the places water is spoiled.
all the places were water is being born again. all the places
where water is singing. all the places where water is being
all the places where water is being sung to
all the places where water is

Towards Tonatiuh #5