American Idyll

yes, the river knows

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

They Didn't Listen




Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked?
Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.
--Sherman Alexie






And I told them
not to dig for uranium,
for if they did,
the children would die.
They didn't listen,
they didn't listen,
they didn't listen to me.
And I told them
if the children die,
there would be
no keepers of the land.
They didn't listen.
And I told them
if they destroy the sky,
machines would come
and soon destroy the land.
They didn't listen...
And I told them
if they destroy the land,
man would have to move
into the sea.
They didn't listen...
And I told them
if they destroy the sea,
they didn't listen...
--Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman





John Trudell: These Memories


Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence . . .
--Wallace Stegner
The Sound of Mountain Water

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