Ghost Dancers
By Niall Twohig
In the Ecological Park at UC San Diego
This easy essay grew out of a meditative walk with students through the Ecological Park. It was written while encampments were springing up at universities across the country but not yet at UC San Diego.
I took you to the green heart of campus.
Tucked away, almost ashamed of itself,
the eucalyptus grove sways
to its ghost dance.
We become like these woods,
unseen
unimportant
nobodies—
no body
but one body.
Ghostly, our body joins ghost dance.
Moves gentle as wind,
drifts slowly as leaf.
Ghost danced,
Ghost danced,
Ghost danced
to the tree
with the tepee.
“Not your word,” Ghost Dancer says. “Not your land.”
“A Lakota word written on Kumeyaay land.”
“Think of tents,” Ghost Dancer says.
“Write of tents. It’ll make more sense.”
So be it.
Ghost danced,
Ghost danced,
Ghost danced
to the tree
with the skeletal tent.
No memento mori, this.
A sign of life rather,
a reminder of
other students sitting
as we sit in this grove.
Their tents
not tucked away
like skeletal tent.
They’re hidden
in plain sight,
in campus plazas,
seen only by seers
who see through the heart.
Encamped, these students
occupy occupied land,
calling us to sit with them
from great distances
as they sit with others
at great distances
who are without tents,
who are exposed,
who are splintered,
who are broken
by our bombs and ignorance.
We sit, quiet,
in the green heart of campus,
sitting
as students across the country ghost dance,
dance with the ghosts of occupied land,
dance with the ghosts of ’68,
dance with the ghosts of Kent State,
dance with the ghosts of 40,000.
The rhythm
of their ghost dance
moves me today
as we sit here
unmoving
in the green heart.