Yesterday the Tennessee legislature put three of their own on trial,

   one white woman and two black men – the so-called #TennesseeThree.

They did not really consider them their own.

The three had been concerned about children killed by guns – too concerned,

   for they had shamed the white masters in the Big House.

The two Black men were expelled.

The one white woman had to watch.

That’s how they do a legislative lynching.

~~~

Last week the Tennessee Valley Authority announced they had the bones of 4,871 Cherokees

 – and Choctaw and Shawnee and Chickasaw and Osage.

Pursuant to a law passed thirty-three years ago, they would return the bones

    to the rightful tribes and families.

My ancestors come from the Cherokee Overhill Towns of Chota and Tanasi,

   which now sit under the waters of Tellico Reservoir.

As a child I wrote a report about a little fish, the snail darter, Percina tanasi.

Like the Cherokee, the Supreme Court ruled the fish had a right to live along the river.

But the president and the congress found a way around it.

Like the Cherokee, the little fish does not live there anymore.

I read the Tennessee Valley Authority’s public notice

    and I realize I qualify to apply for the bones.

~~~

I just learned that one the major sources of the great white myth

   of the Cherokee princess great grandmother that so many claim to have

   comes from the presumed existence of Princess Cornblossom.

Just over the border, the commonwealth of Kentucky

   has installed a roadside memorial to her.

But she did not really exist,

   except in the movies.

Her monument is there just to say,

Hey, we honor the bravery

   of those we ethnically cleansed.