Fealty

Fealty
Joanna Spindler 1/2022

as presented to San Miguel County Board of Commissioners, January 19th, 2022

I pledge allegiance to the rivershed of San Miguel,

and to the undersurface of mycelial network upon which we stand,

our aspen roots and minerals and water.

I pledge allegiance to our mother mountains Ajax, North Pole Peak, and solitary Lone Cone. 

I pledge allegiance to the elk herd on the valley floor and to the many elk herds nowhere near it.

I pledge allegiance to the waterfall in Ames, the bifurcated rhyolite of Ophir, and to the ponderosa forests down in Ilium. 

I pledge allegiance, too, to sandstone Sawpit and the Mesas and Old Elam, to Placerville and staunch Old Ellardville. 

I pledge allegiance to the wide dark skies of Norwood and the many soaring raptors over Redvale, 

to the monumental apple trees of Nucla and to blooming Naturita, 

and beyond all to the rising red escarpments of the one and only Paradox.

I betroth my loyalty, my fellow human critters,
to all that predates each of us: perhaps even our kind.
To find a kinship with this place is each of our lives’ myriad work.

To form alliance with the seasons’ turning skies,

each rivulet revered of river water, and each evidential tree ring.
To keep relatives close by and our coyote packs much closer,

and our ear to earth the closest of them all.

So let me tell you, fellow San Miguellians,
we are perched upon a treasure:

For our bedrock is community, 

our greatest blessing the tenax adaptability that’s modeled for us by each gentle juniper.

And so,

I pledge allegiance to us all: 

One organism, under open skies, each human inextricable from ecosystem, 

with oxygen and freely flowing sunshine for us all.