Only These Remain
    [Inspired by the song Bones by RedStar.]
by Dee Allen

Only these remain
Anatomical remains.

Construction
Sites unearth
Disconnected
Joints.

Only these remain
Skeletal remains.

Shellmounds disturbed—
Buried no more
Bagged, tagged & stored
In a file cabinet drawer.

Only these remain
Ancestral remains.

Evidence that they
Existed here long
Before us others:
Some came as settlers, some
          as captives.
Only these remain
North American remains.

The university
Cellar is no place
For 11,000 indigenous
Bones’ final rest.

Only these remain
Human remains.

Crimes of acadaemia
Descendants still grieve
Gestures of dishonour
Ohlone* ghosts won’t forgive.




*The Ohlone are an American Indian nation native to the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

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