Glen Canyon Remembered

It is but a memory now,
the place we walked in silence and in meditation,
the place where, when the rocks spoke,
we listened.

Then, came the day with the dam completed
and the wild waters tamed –
I stood, rooted amid the celebrants,
not celebrating,
for I knew, you see, what we had lost and
my heart cried out in pain.

I saw grown men cry that day, and women weep
as the water like a greedy dragon,
consumed our canyon.
I wept for all those winding passages
where once we stood in awe.
I wept for rock walls, ongoing creations,
painted by the ages,
and where the sun no longer shines.

They are filling now, with silt,
all those glorious and sacred places.
And muffled through the murky water,
the roar of power boats
captained by those who did not know our Canyon,
or plain just didn’t care.

Some day, the dam will fail –
We warned them, but they wouldn't listen
to our pathetic little army,
but Nature will, in the end, prevail.
Glen Canyon will live again,
its passages will glow again, red, orange, yellow, ochre.
Enlightened beings will walk again
in silence and in meditation.
Dams will be something we read about in books,
failed experiments of a time gone by,
built by beings who saw not beauty in the rock,
but who worshipped instead, their short term greed.

Vi
©June 11, 2005