Listen!

51 Replies
adamickes-childsboots

Copyright – Adam Ickes

Listen!

The great forest is long gone, now a scattering of towns, fields and little tamed woods.  The wild rivers have been enslaved, giving their energy to great engines of commerce.  The thunder of hooves no longer rolls across the prairie.  Crystal pure lakes now lap waves with an oily sheen onto dead shores.

Listen!

We are gone, but we are not forgotten.  People use and misuse our image.  But it is in the land where we are missed.

Listen!

The wind still calls our names.  The ground still rises up in anticipation of our footfalls.  The land remembers.

Listen!

***

I know this is cultural appropriation of the worst kind, but it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the picture.  And it was done with respect to the original peoples of this land.

***

Word count = 100

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.  This week’s prompt is here and uses a photo © Adam Ickes.  Read more or join in by following the InLinkz “linky“.

51 thoughts on “Listen!”

    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks Irene. I had recently read an article about Native Americans trying to reclaim the narrative of their culture, so I was a little more sensitive about putting out that I’m not trying to speak for them than before i read it.

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  10. StuHN

    I think this whole thing about cultural appropriation is taken way too out of proportion. If the muse strikes, it strikes. Otherwise, how could male writers have even female characters, and visa versa. This was an appropriate tale for where the photo took you.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      For the most part, I agree and go where the muse takes me. I hope I do right by it and don’t make silly mistakes. I think I was sensitive about it here for two reasons – I write in first person and I had just finished reading a National Geographic article about Native Americans who are trying to reclaim their own story – I don’t want to say, “This, what I am writing, is your story.” But then, as you said, I went where the muse took me…

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Yes, people’s greed does not take the land into consideration. This story also has another layer in that it is supposed to be written from the point of view of a Native American being sad about what the European settlers did to his ancestors’ land.

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks, Rochelle. I try to have some diversity in my writing, but I know writing from a first person POV can be sensitive for some. I’m glad this came across how I meant it :)

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