Paradise Lost/Regained by Ed Coletti




Swing thuribles lit with sweet flickering 
frankincense and cedar shavings
over Paradise this place as in the irony of
a Talking Heads song where everything is good
when no thing or place ever truly is all good 
Purge us with hyssop and we shall be clean
Bathe us in the rose water used in Arabia to clean the Kaaba 
and in Persia to prepare graves for the dead
For evil must be washed away that death have not dominion
where the land will be reclaimed from possession by monsters

Bring forth the tincture of a billion blossoms
The evil creature hath been amongst us
befouling our beautiful wounded land
with the stench of offal from its breath
condemning each of us to its lingering presence
our fate far worse if we do nothing to dissipate
the foul choking blackening smoke that
the monster has belched forth and left us
wearily sickening all the more so that he’d been
here amongst us during another time of great sorrow


Gather sage and cedar to smudge the sacred places twice destroyed
first by fire then by sacrilege to the ancients the Mechoopda 
of the Maidu people whose spirits reside in the central Sierras 
in the watershed area of the Feather and American rivers 
as well as in Humbug Valley Maidu meaning Man 
will persist watching over this land so rudely visited by fire and evil
Today we chant with them to Creator to restore the trees and native plants, grasses, animals ... Everything out here is connected to the lives of 
our Maidu ancestors whom we protect and by whom we are protected 
that such affronts to each and every Mechoopda too shall pass beyond


(occasioned by Donald Trump’s brief visit to the ruins of Paradise, CA  — November 17, 2018)


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