A poem from Mike the PoeT’s recently published “Letters To My City,” a book of poetry and essays dedicated to Los Angeles.
I sing of a River dammed, dumped, pumped and diverted;
I sing of a River they almost murdered.
I sing of a River the people forgot,
I sing of a River that flows from the rocks…
I sing of a River rushing from Mountain slopes,
snowmelt below Mt. Wilson, the mouth of the Arroyo.
I sing of a River where the shifting bottom of soft sedimentary sandstones
and clay mixes with gravel washed from seasonal runoff.
I sing of a River less celebrated than world waters,
still powerful enough to wash away a village.
I sing of a River that switched beds,
underground moisture in the watershed.
I sing of a River where much of the water
never reached the sea – forming marshes,
lagoons and mud flats.
I sing of a River with a huge underground reservoir
beneath the San Fernando Valley,
I sing of the River that built this city.
I sing of a River that provided life
for the Tongva Tribe. Later to be called
Gabrielinos, they lived amidst the willows,
edible berries and sycamore trees.
I sing of a River where steelhead
were hunted by grizzlies.
I sing of a River with an archipelago of birds, insects and tiny green particles,
foam bubbles, towering power lines, cottonwood trees, tadpoles and morning frogs.
I sing of a River where pelican’s songs echo off canyon walls.
I sing of a River unknown to many,
perhaps first seen in Grease or The Terminator,
I sing of a River that’s always been here.
I sing of a River with tributaries, like the Rio Hondo.
I sing of a River with a confluence in the Arroyo Seco.
I sing of a river weaving through crossroads
of freight rails and intersecting freeways.
I sing of a river below Metrolink and Gold Line trains.
I sing of a River with a bevy of bridges.
Merrill Butler built iconic bridges
in the City Beautiful tradition.
I sing of a River where 44 pobladores established the pueblo of Los Angeles
in 1781 at the Confluence in the name of Spain and King Carlos the Third.
I sing of a river that was here long before sig alerts.
I sing of a river before concrete, squatter camps and floating cans of beer.
I sing of a River paved in concrete by the Army Corp of Engineers.
I sing of a River resurrected one pocket park at a time.
Blades of grass breaking concrete,
riparian wetlands in the Compton Creek,
Oleanders in Atwater, re-instate the native garden!
Lewis MacAdams founded the Friends of the Los Angeles River
with the power of the word. Like John Kinsella says,
“Poems can stop bulldozers.”
I sing of a River where wetlands
and washes once dominated
witness the return of the watershed.