Milwaukee River Greenway
Mitakuye Oyas’in: “We are all related.”

Oh, how the riverbank calls to me,
its waters nearby, a rest from the city,
these times of distress, our troubled world.
The river flows on its own journey,
flash of seagulls in patterns of flight.
Suddenly sweep of wings as they dive
deep, deep for fresh fish beneath.
Wildflowers delight with their bright
faces; healing herbs flourish even
among swaths of garlic mustard
while the shade’s shelter exchanges
its gifts with luminous sunlight.

Here I am in this precious refuge
of ancient lands once home
to Chippewas, Winnebago,
Ojibwe, Menominee.
Potawatomi (‘those who tend the hearth fire’)
warmed themselves on our riverbank
where now we pass by.
Can you feel their presence,
hear their drums, their voices,
their chants, their prayers?

Do you imagine I relax
as I walk this lovely trail?

Now I’d never say I have severe
fears as if a burglar’s after me,
or the menace of vicious assault,
or the wariness needed around
a pack of coyotes.

But hear me out, people.

Still I have to watch my back
every second. Tense, tuned up,
alert with hyper-vigilance
while bikers ride fast free fierce
pumped on their speed, as if they
own the path. No bell, No yell,
maybe a murmured warning
a few feet behind me.
Then SWOOSH on by.
Yes, are you this biker? My heart jumps!
You flash so close my clothes shift
in your startling breeze, my skin electrified!

Does my body, my spirit scramble back
to tranquility. Nope. Not any more.
Too many drive-bys, too many looks
of disdain when I beg for warnings,
for protection. For some time now
I even imagine thrusting a stick
in your spokes as you race by, so
you fly through the air, falling
unhurt (but maybe in a few nettles!)

Do you think I wish to feel
mean-spirited on this precious land?
If you are one of this gang
of cyclists, sadly you create
a path of peril, a trail of risk,
a wound to the riverbank’s peace.

I am not alone in my sorrow.
We are many.

Hear our plea: take care of your fellow
companions on the path, your, our community.
Slow down, respect your relatives,
your elders in nature: the trees, grasses;
how the spawning salmon leap,
beavers bite through the roughest trunk!
Listen to the songs of the streaming currents.
You belong to this ancestral riverway,

Milwaukee: gathering of the waters.

Pause and recall: we are all related.
Mitakuye Oyas’in, all of us a part
of the sacred web of life,
like the blood of one family.

~Louisa Loveridge Gallas
Written for Greenway, Milwaukee River Advocates
15th Anniversary Celebration at Jazz Gallery