NUUCHIU DRUMBEAT … According to Summer Begay of the award-winning Southern Ute Drum, “The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has reached an historic milestone by becoming the first tribe to sign a Tribal Energy Resource Agreement (TERA) with the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.” The signing in D.C. with Secretary Doug Burgum and Asst. Secretary Billy Kirkland III last month formerly recognizes the Tribe’s sovereignty claim to managing its own energy and mineral resources without oversight from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs …
Southern Ute Chair Melvin J. Baker stated, “TERA formalizes what the Tribe has proven for generations — that we have the expertise and the governance systems to manage our resources responsibly, while advancing the well-being of our Tribal Members and safeguarding our land, water and culture” …
However, the agreement merely sets the predictable structure for implementing a TERA with the Tribe, while letting the Tribe determine whether such a system will be feasible given, as one tribal official noted, “the significant investment of staff time and resources required.” Another tribal official added, “We hope this sets a meaningful precedent and expands the opportunities for other Tribes to pursue energy sovereignty” …
Continued Begay, “By removing layers of federal oversight and placing decision-making directly in Tribal hands, this agreement strengthens self-determination, protects land and culture, and ensures development benefits … It also honors the vision of [Chair] Leonard C. Burch, whose leadership challenged the status quo and proved the Tribe could chart its own path.”
LITO TEJADA-FLORES was one of the founders of the MountainFilm festival in Telluride over the Memorial Day weekend back in 1979. Now he and his photographer wife Linde Waidhofer split their time between their Baca home outside Crestone and Casa Mármol in Chile. They were both back in the Telluride Valley this year for the Filmmakers’ Picnic up in the West Meadows — with its startling vistas looking northwest from the 14ers of the Wilson Range of the Rockies. A renaissance man — publisher, writer, designer and poet – Lito was a co-founder of the local environmental group, the Sheep Mountain Alliance, and continues as head of Western Eye Press and co-editor of our online poetry anthology, SageGreenJournal.org
The Land of Caught-Up
-for Linde
We’re almost there, but the land of Caught-Up
Has always been just around the corner, tomorrow
Always gets here, ready or not, caught-up or not
What’s the trick? Get up early? Make lists? Don’t give up
Too much to remember, to do, too many promises to keep
Just start, just try, all will be forgiven, everything counts
And who’s keeping score? The score sheet’s invisible
Or maybe crossed out, crumpled-up and pitched
The Land of Caught-Up is a nice idea, just an idea?
Or a real place? With a finish line, and cheering crowds?
One final sprint away? Verga, vamos … almost there!
How much, how badly, do we want to get there?
Or need to get there? To say: Okay, fini, ready, listo –
Only an idea, yes, but a good one, let’s go there together
SPEAKING OF MOUNTAINFILM … One of my favorite festivals of the Telluride season. Got to moderate a morning Coffee Talk panel this time on “Artists, Activists and Iconoclasts” – a group right up my alley … I didn’t see too many films, as it’s hard to be trapped indoors in bouncelight theaters while spring is leafing out green and brilliant all around us. And back on Wrights Mesa where I live I had irrigating to do in this drought. And planting trees, flowers & spuds (my specialty for years). But I managed to squeeze in a couple great ones the one day I was able to attend …
Türkiye’s Elif Koyutürk Hazen’s Guardians of Anatolia (2026) was a world premiere. The impressive short documentary tracks the threatened lifestyle of a woman-led nomad society that year-round herds goats through the Taurus Mountains. It’s an intimate close-up of their traditional life, being constantly on the move, against the backdrop of beautiful wild lands in a growing country with development gobbling up habitat …
Abraham Joffe’s Trade Secret (2025) is a dazzling exposé of the World Wildlife Fund and its support for the trophy hunting of polar bears – a keystone species increasingly endangered in the Arctic. The filming is stunning, the story dramatic, and the level of investigative focus and advocacy persistence noteworthy. One of the principals in the film, investigator Dr. Adam Cruise of South Africa was in town for the show and outlined the continuing efforts to get the polar bears added protection in the face of First World trophy hunting as well as climate change.
DOC DACHTLER is a rural poet in Nevada City, California – one of Gary Snyder’s North San Juan neighbors. His aphorisms enjoy backwoods focus and a tinge of country humor. He’s managed to avoid rocketing into the 21st Century’s cyberspace.
an ugly face
&
not a book
TALKING GOURD … This week’s Talking Gourd is from Placerville poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer who has a marvelous website with information on her teaching, her podcast, her poem-a-day practice, and her book readings. The poem seems disturbingly fitting in these dark times.
When Times Are Dark
Trust is a porcupine
sitting on the highway
in the middle of the night
not bothering to raise
even one of his
thirty-thousand quills,
choosing instead to look
right into the oncoming
traffic, the shine
of a direct gaze
more effective
communication
than any sharpness,
any barb
-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
