The second night in Yosemite was magic –
i decided to sleep in open air
near to the tree next to our tents;
through its branches:
a view on the stars and the sky.
I found out about Yosemite’s cemetery, where some of the Indians who used to live here, the Ahwahneechee, were buried alongside some of the new Americans who campaigned for making Yosemite into a national park. I wanted to go to the cemetery, but there was no time. An immense need to find a material site where to mourn for what has been called the Californian genocide. Of all the things that i find painful in this place, there’s the tragedy of what is done to memory, the strong sense of a hardly acknowledged violent whiping out of people, culture and history. As Olivia said when we were talking back in Antwerpen not so long ago: you can feel that kind of violence in the land. In Santa Cruz there is no place to commemorate – what remains of the Mission is a painful site. And of course a small cemetery remains a merely symbol but at least it is a material one. Yes, one can mourn with the wind and sun, the water and the earth. But as Sara said: as attributing Native Americans with a vague spirituality that is everywhere and nowhere has gone hand in hand with taking away the materiality of lives, livelihoods and land, it is not enough. What happened to this land on which we walk?
In the absence of a more material way of mourning, we read a poem (once more by Drew Dillinger) that second night in Yosemite.
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I write words to catch up to the ancestors.
An angel told me the only way
to walk through fire
without getting bured
is to become fire.
Some days angels whisper
in my ear as I walk
down the street and I fall in love
with every person I meet,
and I think, maybe this
could be a bliss
like when Dante met
Beatrice.
Other days all I see
is my collusion
with illusion.
Ghosts of projection
masquerading
as the radiant angel
of love.
You know I feel like
the ancestors
brought us together.
I feel like the ancestors
brought us here and they expect great things.
They expect us to say what
we think and
live how
we feel and follow the hard paths
that bring us near joy.
They expect us
to nurture
all the children.
I write poems to welcome angels
and conjure ancestors.
I pray to the angels of politics
and love.
I pray for justice sake
not to be relieved from my frustrations,
at the same time burning sage and asking ancestors for patience.
I march with the people
to the border
between nations
where
everything stops
except
the greed of corporations.
Thoughts like comets
calculating the complexity
of the complicity.
There is so much noise in the oceans
The whales can’t hear each other.
We’re making them crazy,
driving dolphins insane.
What kind of ancestors are we?
Thoughts like comets
leaving craters
in the landscape of my consciousness.
I pray to ancestors and angels:
Meet me in the garden.
Meet me where spirit walks softly
in the cool of the evening.
Meet me in the garden
under the wings of the bird
of many colors.
Meet me in the garden
of your longing.
Every breath
is a pilgrimage.
Every
breath
is a pilgrimage
to you.
I pray
to be
a conduit.
An angel told me:
the only way to walk through fire–
become fire.