Chicago poet Susana Sandoval has been fasting at Standing Rock ever since she spoke to my classes earlier this semester at the University of Arizona. Several years ago, she was arrested while fasting 17 days in front of the White House to call for a humane immigration reform.
This time, she is not counting, but it must be close to 30 days. When she left Tucson, she returned to Chicago, picked up her daughter and has been at Standing Rock ever since. Her stay there has been a spiritually transforming experience and the camp itself, she says, is a ceremony.
She gives me daily updates and tells me about all the original nations represented there from across the continent. From my perch, all I can do is write and burn copal for those who have chosen to use their bodies to oppose the oil pipeline. She has actually not written much lately, save for a draft of a poem. I prodded her, and thus here it is:
The Trail of Tears traveled
delivered in the realm of America divided
can we build upon faulty foundations?
