My grandmother's native California is burning.
Land that she loved, land she pledged allegiance to daily
with the trees, reciting together
with the birds whose sudden songs she knew by heart.
Loved the changing morning face of the ocean, never the same.
Land she roamed her on her few free days as a slave.
A young, capable woman with a bedroll,
without her Spanish spurs, she let the horse lead,
going wherever she went, up into the rugged hills
to spring-fed creeks and secret forests
and onto high lookout points where she could see it,
the Pacific.
Sorry.
Where she could see it, the Pacific, our only country,
el mar.
To soft meadows, to dream of the gold hills of home,
Montecito, Santa Barbara in her veins.
And that far off ancient island, all those Old West towns
she loved when she was truly free, an elder,
and photographed like the "Indian" she was,
her head placed firmly in the box
or in her fine silver concha belt of hammered butterflies,
the antennae near filigree.
And a dark velvet skirt smiling with her arm
around a sister poised for the picture for a living.
My native California is burning.
All that will be left are the survivors again.
[APPLAUSE]