On Saturday Placerville celebrated International Human Rights Day with speakers, music, art, and poetry in Town Hall. Before my turn came to read, representatives from American River Conservancy and Cosumnes Culture and Waterways spoke of the recent LandBack of Conservancy land to local Indigenous people – a fitting introduction to my poem in honor of Coppa Hembo, Chief of the Hill Nisenan on Georgetown Divide during our Gold Rush:
River, Dancing
It must be hard for an old river to dance in sunlight,
when it sees how man grubs and torments the land and its living creatures.
Hordes of newcomers digging bedrock for gold, blasting hillsides, poisoning the water;
trying to outdo Nature’s patient work.
Slave traders raiding other tribes;
the land’s people scattered from their ancestral lands.
Does the river remember Coppa Hembo, chief of the Hill Nisenan;
judge for ALL people,
who kept his tribe safe from Indian Wars and smallpox,
built schools where children of all races
sat together learning the same communal lessons?
Surely the old river would dance to see such a man
walking in peace beside its living waters.
~ Taylor Graham
mural for Human Rights Day by students of Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills
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