Tag Archives: ghost dance

Master, where are your bones tonight?

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Object from the exhibition We call them Vikings produced by The Swedish History Museum

Master, where are your bones tonight?
I heard the coyotes keening as the moon rose;
and the heavy air brought the scent
of burgeoning prairie grasses.
Summer is coming on fast,
and faster every year.

Master, where are your bones tonight?
You went into the desert, again and again, and then
one night you never came home.
We knew why, we had brought you there—
brought your body and your ghost: your life
had already leaked out of you, into hospital tubes, and was gone.
We left you there in the desert,
to reconcile with the Earth.

I had a recurring dream after you died:
Coyote, as a lark, was playing a reel
on a flute made from your shinbone.
His eyes looked sad and he was dancing
a few feet above the earth.
His eyes looked sad. But—you know—
with Coyote, you never can tell.

In my dream, if it was mine,
summer was always coming on fast, and the prairie grasses
whipped in a playful dance
until I woke. And summer came.

I haven’t had that dream in years.
Just tonight, though, the rising moon caught me wondering—
Where are your bones tonight, Master?

 

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The stampede of History

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The stampede of History
occurred on this site in 1872
on this prairie—flat, enduring,
tasting of noon sunshine
and its black, black shade—
where the dusk-blue flowers of History
previously blossomed.

We have been living backwards
toward that day ever since–
forgetting that first giant step,
the big blue marble the color of History,
and the light of a thousand atoms
that smelled as black as History
and roared in our sovereign bones.

On that day in 1872, which was a day
like any other, the cicada chant
of History will be heard in the land
where lately the lightning blossomed
and the concomitant thunder rolled
like enormous cannonballs
across a flattening plain of History.

On that day, you’ll put on a beaded shirt
and ride through the fusillade
of soldiers—Sitting Bull
will be with you, and Jack Wilson,
as you ride, and the blue flowers
will part before you, the land
will rise up before you, and everything
will go down in History.

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No matter what

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Surrounded by troubled seas - 6659283805_a76fe0ae4b_o
The tall man stood on the island
Blunt-faced, facing the wind
With his eyes as wide as a child’s eyes
And his clothes flapping about him

And the seabirds cried like ever
Just as if he were nought but a stone
And the wind rushed heedlessly by him
Till the sea rose and mothered him home

His blunt face is long since forgotten
By his people long scattered and dead
But all the same he stood there once
No matter what nobody says

 

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Song that Came to Creeping in His Dream

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Dragonfly - British libellulinae, or, Dragon flies (detail).JPG

Dragonfly, dragonfly,
Dragonfly, dragonfly,
Unstitch his eyes, unstitch his eyes.
The snow flies, the river is frozen,
Unstitch his eyes.

From tent to tent I go,
I go where I am wanted,
I go wherever they can pay my fee,
I go with the dragonfly,
Together we unstitch his eyes, we unstitch them.

This song is my breath,
Dragonfly, dragonfly,
This song is my breath.
Dragonfly, dragonfly,
My breath is this song.

They come by their twos and threes,
But we will come by our fours.
Stitch up their eyes,
Dragonfly, dragonfly,
Stitch up their eyes, stitch up their eyes.

 

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You will never be able to

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“The dancers themselves are careful not to disturb the trance subjects while their souls are in the spirit world.”

James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee (Characteristics of the Dance)

You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.

As well try to use a net to carry smoke
As well try to remove the destination from the road
As well try to pull a single strand from a spider’s web

You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.

See where bright motes are dancing in the spring air
And you have parked your car on the sand near the ocean
The ocean rises and eats the land
The land rises up out of the ocean again

You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.

Somewhere a single flower has sprung up suddenly in a meadow already full of flowers
Somewhere a star is burning the universe
Somewhere the body of a red-winged blackbird is being disassembled by ants
Somewhere a girl plucks a single flower and discards it

You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.

You have tried to make your song without any singing
You have tried to make your dance without any dancers
But now Spider Woman is making her web again

You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.
You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.
You will never be able to strip away the spirits of the dead from the living.

 

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The Dead

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In this dance with the spirits of the dead, no formal dress is worn.
All ornaments are cast off in the dance, no drum
Or rattle is used, nor is any other instrument required.
She has been at it since yesterday morning,

Look, now it is full midnight, look, now another morning has come!
Surely she is dancing with the spirits of the dead
Surely she is dancing with the dead who never grow tired
Surely she is dancing this morning with the spirits of the dead!

 

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Puella Mea

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IDL TIFF file

she was a marble
she was a plate
a bowl of stars covered her
a moon danced for her and her alone
she was a womb
she was a grocery store
her children loved her
her children wrote graffiti on the walls of her house
she was whimsical
she took her time
the wind blew across her
the unrelieved desert sun drove her to despair
she took her lumps
she was excessive at times
she wasn’t going anywhere
she doesn’t care what you think about it

 

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I dreamed the streets of Katmandu were full of flowers

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I dreamed the streets of Katmandu
Were full of flowers
As the earth-mother mountains
Were shrugging off their glaciers
While a sea rose up somewhere
And vultures dreamed of feasts
But a young woman smiled and said
Nothing’s too much to bear
And sure enough she had sung
Her child to sleep
And the streets of Katmandu
Were full of flowers.

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That story

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My father told that story again
the one that ends
You can’t get there from here,
and he laughed again like always.

I didn’t laugh though.
It’s only a good joke
if it couldn’t be true
that’s what I thought.

I haven’t slept well
ever since then
because I keep wondering
is that really how things are now?

 

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The Toy

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It was a witch’s toy,
that’s what they said.
She made it, they said,
and so everything that happened must have been her doing.

Some people said it was made of darkness and old clothes.
Some said the wind whistled through it.
Some said it had old dry bones in it,
some said they were human bones.

She not being a witch, so she said,
it was no witch’s toy, whatever it was.
She had seen her son playing with just such a toy,
that’s the reason she made it, she said.

He was playing with it as he ran and laughed
between the green grass
and the blue, blue, blue sky
—oh, it was so blue!

That was how it was, she said,
after he died
and she danced and danced.
That was what she saw, she said, just before the vision

ended like a snapped-off twig

 

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