I.
– bent stick in the path, ridging
the dust
where the sun
has been beating down
ten thousand hours
since last it rained
if you were a snake
I’d know
what to do
with you
tip my hat
wish you good hunting.
II.
First a red
tailed hawk
juking from
treetrunk
to tall grass
under the dark canopy
and next I, emerging, see
coyotes
flashing against the sky.
I don’t understand this world
anymore.
Nuisance crow
on an old fencepost:
green field behind;
brown hills in the distance;
gravel road,
deadleaf trees,
white sky,
world all around —
when did it all become
not worth a mention?
I fear my sixth decade
will make me an old man yet.
“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.
The tree grew up overnight, the first anyone knew
Was sunrise and passengers tumbling from cars gawking
At that tree, its lower branches wreathed in fog,
Its upper branches gathering the fog into
Towering clouds. Crow winged out of the sun, squawking,
And drove the dogs away from the tree,
And we danced, we danced down the sun and the fog,
We danced the concrete into dust, the dust into the sea.
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