And The People Made The Water Holy

Payahüünadü (The Land of Flowing Water), Bishop, California

In 1913 the city of Los Angeles succeeded in a long and covert project that led to the theft of the Owens River from its watershed. The river no longer flows but is a series of dams and pipes that fuel the suburban sprawl of a city built upon desert sands.

I

Twin Lakes, Bridgeport, California

Divide her
from the universe,
hydrogen,
oxygen,
cool relic earth,
finite snow,
finite rain,
finite sea,
finite lake,
I walk toward her
heavy flashing sky,
she wets
granite peaks,
granite bowls,
my open palms,
blue glacial pools,
sage and pine,
I want to be
her verdant lichen,
chipmunk,
deer,
aspen,
I sip her sacred,
my body sky and rain,
my body song and praise,
my body makes
her holy

II

Benton, California

Her horses carried them
across her fields who fed them,
their ambitions raised
on rifle casings, spoils stowed
in heavy, locked trunks, waiting,
for opportunity or death.

It’s death that gnawed at them,
that wind worn desert crucifix,
nameless and forgotten.
Even now, we knife our initials
in aspen bark but aspen heals us
into a scar, we cannot win
eternal life like this.

She offers everything,
sweet ripe rye grass, rose hips,
her body to worship.
We caught her in a coffer dam,
called her a lake, called her a river,
wrote our names onto her map,
so death knows where to find us.

III

Spillway Road, Owens River, California

Beneath your dam
her trickle flows
through the rubble
through the road
I walk toward her
grass and fern,
rose,
willow,
aspen,
bird,
plump august drops
raise wet scent from dust
bow the leaves with every touch,
I want a prayer to bow for
her hidden sea of green
the waiting egg and seed,
I want her stolen river
to be released from history