Traditional
Muscogee/Tsalagi land,
Then seized
Colonisers’ war spoils,
Then slave
Plantation where planter’s family’s wealth was made,
Then city
Prison farm, sharecropping as a penalty,
Slowly reverted
To healthy green
Forest as it was in years of yore—

Forces of entertainment
And law enforcement
Have alternate visions
For 350 wooded acres—

Amuse the public
With films of white knuckle action.
Train the new recruits
For our repression.

High-speed car chases,
Late-night drug raids,
House-to-house searches,
Combative crowd control,

More explosions
Than a Hollywood Summer box office hit,
Bullets fly replacing birds
Inside an artificial city—

To the woods and
Their human guests,
Tragedy strikes
Both ways—

Chainsaws ready to cut.
Bulldozers move to clear.
The vision of 98%
Conflicts with this frightening future—

Person of conscience
Was shot defending
The forest of South Atlanta.
State troopers’ guns
Made that certain.
Take out one forest protector
And many more will take their place.

The forest belongs not to the movie industry.
The forest belongs not to the police.
Weelaunee belongs to itself.

 

W: 2.9.23

Weelaunee: Muscogee: “Green/brown/yellow river.”
Muscogee: What the Creek Indians call themselves.
Tsalagi: What the Cherokee Indians call themselves. Pronounced: “Chah-lah-gee.”