Prayer for Penance to The Great Salt Lake
By Lin Flores

The gusts bellow and bark
While mountains criss-crossed  
Witness the harrowing, 
The rack of lack, the 
Inattentive gaze and slap,
The use of land with no
Thank you, no beso 
No amor, no gratitude 
Or you meant the world
Because you are the world 
What space are we leaving?
What if we are here to say,

Great Lake, bring me into 
You now. Forgive us.
Forgive us. Forgive us. 

The stare of an imploring 
Shore withers to enmity.
She will not go unheard
The Plover, the Sandpiper
The Marbled Godwit will
Not sing for it,
Will not stand for it

Great Lake, bring me into
You now. Forgive us.
Forgive us. Forgive us.

The snowfall a weeping
For healing. A gentle sobbing
To rock back the bottle,
To make sense of what 
Feeding is required 
What tongues have
Been both beneath and flush
To the salt? La agua, la agua 
Lengua, lengua, what does it mean
To take, capture, exsanguination, 
It translates, it photographs, it dances
To communication, people
Drain lakes, they take, their own
Rapture will be over dead land
Only to understand it is no rapture at all
It is the fall of civilization 
One ecosystem at a time

 …

 We must listen and list with our language—

List all the wells we extinguish 
Tenochtitlan, 
Tulare,
Tahoe 
Texacoco 

It is a time for naming. A time for 
Penance. A time for resistance. It begins

With the bark, the imploring, the weeping. 

Say it with me:

Forgive us.
Forgive us. Forgive us.

Forgive us.
Forgive us. Forgive us.

Forgive us.
Forgive us. Forgive us.

Forgive us.
Forgive us. Forgive us.