Lucien Darjeun Meadows
where we are, much more than we are
when we are. There is no when without a where. There is no we without a here.
NER staff reader Simone Kraus talks to Lucien Darjeun Meadows author of the essay “Circling Eloh: A Meditation“ about his love of running, the meaning of the Cherokee word “eloh,” his identity as a writer-translator, and the linguistic kaleidoscope in his life. Lucien’s essay appeared in
NER 41.4.
Simone Kraus: You are a long-distance trail runner. How does running inform your thinking, how does it affect your writing?
Lucien Darjeun
Meadows: Strangely, it wasn’t until after running the Never Summer 100K in 2019 that I began to write in poetry and prose about running. That said, the rhythms of running feel essential to my thinking and writing, with different sequences mirroring the sprint up a hill, or a long rolling stretch, the pause between breaths or strides that feels like an endless suspension, or the breathless careening
Circling Eloh: A Meditation
First the war, thousands of miles to the east. No. First other, older wars with forgotten names, unhousing and unhoming the Apache Nation. The Arapaho Nation. The Cheyenne Nation. The Pueblo. The Shoshone. The Comanche. The Kiowa. The Navajo. There is a river run red, there is a lake, there is a world on fire who can never be regained. How can we reclaim when name and place are lost? When even ponderosa and lodgepole are uprooted for maple and elm?
There is water. There are a hundred years. There is not enough water. There are fifty years. There is the town of Stout, and then there is not. First the young couples leave for Fort Collins, over the hill, or for Wyoming, forty miles north. Then the families. Then the Bureau of Reclamation comes with letters and phone calls and men in uniforms and there is no choice left but to move. Some bring their homes, some fall into sheds provided five miles to the south.