#MIDDLEBURY
Big Bend National Park Says No to All Walls
Naomi Shihab Nye
Big Bend has been here, been here. Shouldn’t it have a say?
Call the mountains a wall if you must, (the river has never been a wall),
leavened air soaking equally into all, could this be the home
we ache for? Silent light bathing cliff faces, dunes altering
in darkness, stones speaking low to one another, border secrets,
notes so rooted you may never be lonely the same ways again.
Big bend in thinking – why did you dream you needed so much?
Water, one small pack. Once I lay on my back on a concrete table
the whole day and read a book. A whole book, and it was long.
The day I continue to feast on.
Stones sifting a gospel of patience and dust,
no one exalted beyond a perfect parched cliff,
no one waiting for anything you do or don’t do.
Santa Elena, South Rim, once a woman knew what everything here
was named for, Hallie Stillwell brimming with stories,
her hat still snaps in the wind. You will not find
a prime minister in Big Bend, a president, or even a candidate,
beyond the lion, the javelina, the eagle lighting on its nest.
About this poem
“‘Big Bend National Park Says No to All Walls’ was written in response to pronouncements of Donald Trump. Take a look at the Israeli wall. Can you imagine such a thing across your state’s entire southern border?” – Naomi Shihab Nye
About Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author of “Transfer” (BOA Editions, 2011). She teaches at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Austin, and lives in San Antonio, Texas.
This poem was commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and funded by a National Endowment for the Arts Imagine Your Parks grant. Imagine Your Parks grants celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service and the 50th anniversary of the NEA by supporting projects that use the arts to engage people with the memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System in 2016.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Naomi Shihab Nye. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
