I went home over the Summer
to Talgarth, Wales in the mountains
of Breconshire.

There I walked land no one stole.
There I felt a connection to the land
and people, the name Watkins,
along with Davis, Thomas, Hughes
and Evans dotting graves at the
churchyard of St. Gwendoline’s…

Some graves need work, and I shall
return to work them, remember
our fathers and mothers so forgotten
when a slew of Talgarth’s sons and
daughters fled to an old world
we called new because white people
hadn’t before Columbus, Raleigh
and Smith seen it.

We vainly usurped the land before
Spain or other usurpers could,
committed armed theft over the
course of hundreds of years,

now call the British colonists’
experiment in government of
the 18th century the “greatest
democracy in the world.”

Not so for Native Americans,
or the slaves we brought to work
stolen land, promised to pay
them after the Civil War,
only to renege and continue
to preach about the Greatest
Democracy in the World.

Great on the surface for people
escaping responsibilities and
lives in Europe, such as my
ancestors, who obviously left
Dad and Grandpa’s graves to
the wind in Talgarth, Wales, so
we could go across an ocean
and steal.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation
of 1676 was a prayer of
thanks to God for killing
off Native Americans so efficiently
with disease and in-fighting.

The natives had a message of
gratitude for the land, wisdom
and peace—

Something our bible and gun-
toting ancestors cared nothing
for, unfortunately.

Global Warming arrived in 1492,
solidified in 1607 with John
Smith and other English people
calling native Wingandacoa
Virginia, its first successful
robbery being “Jamestown”
named after a Scottish king
who unified Britain and tore
apart Native America without
a care, because those naked,
brown, content people were
not “Christian.”

Where did Jesus say it’s good
to leave your fathers’ graves,
sail across an ocean and steal
other human beings’ land?

Jesus said truth, Gospel, glory
to all that’s High for his teaching,
but his message would be
better served if we treated foreign
people with love, respect—
totally free of judgment.

The United States is a farce
built on stolen land, violence
and lies.

The land, though, thrives, and
I dream to return to it after
fixing the graves of Talgarth.

God forgive us our sins, help
us to amend mistakes and errors
to truly pave the way not
just for a biblical second coming,

but for a more full, complete
spirituality enhanced by the experience
of Native people, whose Great Spirit
is love and peace,

Glorious creation, the Waterfall
their bible,

Something they taught on deaf ears
until a day I hope soon, when
white people from Europe open
them up to hear.