<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div>Paradise Lost/Regained </div><div><i style="font-size: 14px;">(occasioned by Donald Trump’s brief visit to <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></i></div><div><i style="font-size: 14px;">the ruins of Paradise, CA —November 17, 2018)</i></div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></p><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">Swing thuribles lit with sweet flickering </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">frankincense and cedar shavings over Paradise </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">this place where everything aspired to be pleasant</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">when no thing or place ever truly is all good </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">Purge us with hyssop and we shall be clean</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">Bathe us in the rose water used in Arabia to clean the Kaaba </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">and in Persia to prepare graves for the dead</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">For evil must be washed away that death have not dominion</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">where the land will be reclaimed from possession by monsters</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">Bring forth the tincture of a billion blossoms</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">The evil creature hath been amongst us</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">befouling our wounded land</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">with the stench of offal from its breath</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">condemning each of us to its lingering presence</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">our fate far worse if we do nothing to dissipate</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">the foul choking blackening smoke that</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">the monster has belched forth and left us</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">wearily sickening all the more so that he’d been</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">here amongst us during another time of great sorrow</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-kerning: none"></span><br></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">Gather sage and cedar to smudge the sacred places twice destroyed</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">first by fire then by sacrilege to the ancients the Mechoopda </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">of the Maidu people whose spirits</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none">reside in the central Sierras </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">in the watershed area of the Feather and American rivers </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">as well as in Humbug Valley Maidu meaning Man </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">will persist watching over this land so rudely visited by fire and evil</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">Today we chant with them<i> </i>to Creator to restore the trees and native </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">plants, grasses, animals ... Everything out here is connected to the lives of </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">our Maidu ancestors whom we protect and by whom we are protected</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none">that such affronts to each and every Mechoopda too shall pass beyond</span></div></div><div style="margin: 0px; text-indent: 72px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-kerning: none"><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Ed Coletti</div></div></div></body></html>