the Padres
by Linda Scheller
The morning sun glints on dark water
dammed and trapped,
drowning the canyon far below the boat.
We ride slowly past fishermen
and their litter, adolescents in powerboats
and treeless shores, gold on one side,
green on the other. At the reservoir's end
we disembark to walk among the red maids,
tidy tips, popcorn flowers, lupine,
brodiaea, golden poppies, cobweb thistle.Here the Yurok women sought wild
onions,
planting rings of smaller bulbs for gardens
in the tall, whispering grass.
Here the Yurok men stalked antelope
and tule elk, passed by grizzlies
and the giant garter snake, now
all ghosts. We rest beside the creek
clotted with fertilizer-fed algae
and muddied by the cattle
that leave stubble in their wake.Beneath our feet a grinding rock reverberates
with memories of pounding stones and songs.
Listen, the water murmurs.
Padre de la Cuesta is coming.
Remember how the people were forced to leave
their houses of tule, their baskets of acorns.
The padre and his soldiers on horseback
drove the Yurok through the canyons
to the mission fifty miles away.
their hunting, gaming, fishing, and dancing
were tied by their thumbs and dragged in a line
behind the soldiers' horses. Many arrived
at San Juan Bautista with bleeding opposable
stumps. Those who escaped the endless progression
of work and prayer were hunted and shot.
Miners killed women and children on sight,
diseases came for which the plants and smoke
held no cure, and now the vacant canyon
is stalked by corporations that prey on beauty
and eat indigenous cultures whole.
The wind sighs, the flowers tremble.
A new dam has been approved,
a larger reservoir is planned.
The ancient forest of sycamores
and brilliant mosaic of orange lichen
will drown and vanish beneath brown water.
The wheels of the conquerors
will crush the bones and songs of the past,
rolling over diminished peaks
silhouetted against the dirty sky.
The boat carries us back,
gliding toward our cars.
In the still, deep water
we pass a flock of grebes
swiftly diving for fish
and surfacing again like cork.
Grebes mate for life, dancing on the water
in their annual attraction
and the babies ride their mother's back
as she swims. The grebes float beside us,
neither fearful nor aggressive,
constant in their care for one another,
unchanging over ages. Their numbers
will rise with the water
as they drift on the flooded canyon,
diving down to the Path of the Padres
to pluck the fish from
the graves of the Yurok.