Month: June 2018

With Reservation

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

“You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.” – Chief joseph (In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat, Thunder traveling over the Mountains)
#humanrights #EndFamilyDetention #NoBanNoWall

“Words do not pay for my dead people.”

Shall we talk
about
it
awhile while we travel the miles
of
defiled
land
slaughtered
animals
murdered
people
that
lead
to a
place
you will be
graciously confined to
called
a
reservation
but
you
don’t
need
an
application
just
lose
your
apprehension
and
stay
put
here
awhile while we hand out the piles
of
stingy
food
rationed
goods
white man’s
ways
that
you
are
being
graciously supplied
without
hesitation.

“Good words will not give me back my children.”

Yes, but you fled
showing great
premonition
against our
demands,

AND

we require
your
supplication
without
RESERVATION.

“Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law.”

Sure, just submit
to our
imposed
economic
spiritual
cultural
bounded
limitations

until we discover the next resource we want.

“Give them all an even chance to live and grow.”

You ARE free to live
and grow –

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While Humans Built

.Reading time 1 minute.

while humans built towers
the meaning was in stars
and the petals of flowers

spun on an orb weaver’s thread
sparkling with dew,
tapped in the fertile soil
by the tree’s persistent roots,
tossed by the brute wind
like the dead leaves of autumn

flowing like the cool, clear waters
of the ground-sprung creek

cleansing like the rain
warming like the sun
blanketing like snow stores undone
flying on the wings of birds and butterflies
churning up the earth like worms
standing firm like rock
eroding like sand

and

like the great willow
ever growing toward the sky
still, cascading to the ground
sheltering life
in its tent
of leaves
draped
around

while humans built towers
the beauty was in stars
and the petals of flowers

~

Words and Photography ©2018 Tanya Cliff ~ to contact me

Posted in poetry & free verse.

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Quotes #1

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“Fantasy is more than a trick of illusion. It is the sweat of invention dripped onto the page.”

~Tanya Cliff

 

 

Words & Video ©2018 Tanya Cliff ~ to contact me

Posted in quotes & film.

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Trace the Edges

.Reading time 1 minute.

I lie in the grass
like I did as a child
and look up to the sky
trace my fingers along the edges of the clouds drifting by –

a ship with tall sails
cuts through the deep blue

a girl dances
in a billowing skirt

a hippopotamus sticks its head out of the river,
its mouth gaping,
or is it the mouth of a crocodile
lurking under the surface of the Nile

the egrets on the bank don’t look worried
they will grab their meals
and then take flight

there,
the canopy of a forest

there,
the mountain peaks

there,
a strange system of planets
in an alternate universe

there,
the little stone I skipped in the pond yesterday,
it went farther than I thought it could possibly go

like my dreams
of childhood and today,
soaring – these clouds –
stories I long to tell

to be seen by others
as they lie in the grass
and look up to the sky
and trace the edges
of me

~

Words and Photography ©2018 Tanya Cliff ~ to contact me

Posted in poetry & free verse.

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