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