{"id":1134,"date":"2012-11-21T13:40:01","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T21:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2012-11-21T13:52:40","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T21:52:40","slug":"gail-tremblay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/?p=1134","title":{"rendered":"Gail Tremblay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meditation on The Dalles Dam
\nfor Lillian Pitt<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Electricity is humming in a spider web of lines
\nas copper wires cased in rubber cross the land;
\nwhat sorrow builds in this sound that only whines<\/p>\n

where the thunder of water no longer combines
\nwith a wild rush of salmon so close at hand?
\nElectricity is humming in a spider web of lines.<\/p>\n

Where fish runs were rich, everything declines.
\nNo one explains how a body can withstand
\nThe sorrow that builds in this sound that only whines.<\/p>\n

Fishermen stood on scaffolds amid the steep inclines
\nof rock; water foamed before the flow was dammed
\nso electricity could hum in a spider web of lines.<\/p>\n

Rocks watched while men made strange designs
\nTo swell the river to places no rush of water planned.
\nWhat sorrow grows when the new sound only whines?<\/p>\n

The bodies of old ones wash out of ancient shrines\u2014
\nhow can the spirits of the dead learn to understand
\nthe electricity that hums in a spider web of lines.
\nWhat sorrow builds in this sound that only whines?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From Wikipedia:<\/a> \u00a0Celilo Falls\u00a0(Wyam<\/em>, meaning “echo of falling water” or “sound of water upon the rocks,” in several native languages) was a tribal fishing area on the\u00a0Columbia River, just east of the\u00a0Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border between Oregon\u00a0and\u00a0Washington. T\"\"he name refers to a series of cascades and waterfalls on the river, as well as to the native settlements and trading villages that existed there in various configurations for 15,000 years. Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent until 1957, when the falls and nearby settlements were submerged by the construction of\u00a0The Dalles Dam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gail Tremblay<\/a> is a descendant of Onondaga and Micmac ancestors. She resides in Olympia, WA and has been an artist, writer, and cultural critic for over thirty years. She shares a unique vision through her multi-media visual works,<\/a> art installations, her writing on Native American Art, and her poetry. She is a professor at The Evergreen State College, where she has mentored students in the fields of visual arts, writing, Native American and cultural studies. Her book of poems, Indian Singing,<\/a><\/em> was published by Calyx Press, and her poetry is widely anthologized<\/a> and poems have been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Japanese and published internationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meditation on The Dalles Dam for Lillian Pitt   Electricity is humming in a spider web of lines as copper wires cased in rubber cross the land; what sorrow builds in this sound that only whines where the thunder of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,125,29,153,8,1,365],"tags":[366,367],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1134"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1164,"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1134\/revisions\/1164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}