By: Rosa Lopez
Art by: Jackie Wright
Stretch marks of mountain ranges
Valleys and city hips collide seamlessly intertwined
The forest bedding, pillowed by smog clouds
Man and mother nature
Falling into each other engulfed in time
When temptation overcame the sacred relation
Grass dances were wiped away by John
His Deer tracks pushed into her tea-colored skin
An offering of new tillage
A put-put-put drum beat to the mechanical greeting
A cry for consent rose as the birds flew from wildflower fields
Lust lifts the skirts of coal mines
Broken–backed, blackened–breath
Penetrating the gifts of time
Hold onto all she can give all you can take
Bricked up, piped, frack deep, pumping
Gasps of release
Drill her down
Raise her up
Inject the formations and watch as she crumbles to the will of your hand
Man has made a Squaw of the surface
Overbearing to demands, strapped to the papoose of rapacity
Primal rage bites back, winded she screams
She aches, she Aches, she ACHES
Quaking, upwelling, ocean rising, flooding the cities you can’t maintain
Caught in the act of violation
Reconcile with empty promises
Green-wash the lies you cannot unpack—a flexible film to the truth
Crackling of falsified veiled protection
Each motion grows louder, deafening the heart
The spoils of quick pleasure
Empty endlessly
Into a river, she weeps
Slugged against landfills and the crashing of ice sheets
The cycle never completes
She runs dry with each affair
And when the winds no longer whistle in her sweetgrass hair
She will be barren
And the shame will be yours to share
Notes
[1]Squaw has historically been used as a sexual slur against North American Indigenous women. These were women who did not comply with structures of colonialism and women the settlers could not conquer. Reclaiming the word Squaw focuses on the empowerment of retaining self-autonomy. To compare nature to a Squaw is to portray the settler relationship of overexploitating natural resources as an act of assault on the environment and Indigenous bodies.
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