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                          Kachinas    

 

kachinas dance on a desert needle
in blood light & washed turquoise
on earth the color of tortillas
in Japanese Power Ranger helmets
with no homepage & no e-mail address
tracing corn meal clouds on red stone
to invite thunder beings to pound the
sun shattered world

kachinas parachute
from shining ice mountains
to plant something in the kiva of dreams
where they once slept in rock
still as fossils of microscopic virus

an ancestor spirit
rattles a sheep shoulder bone
dressed in blue corn ears & spruce
dancing with laden honey bees
to conjure savage light

power stamps like horse legs
power dances inside clay vessels
with eagle prayer feathers dangling
& leg bells jangling
dust rises like pollen
& time waits

Chasing Star Kachina
will you plant the red earth of Mars?
in your painted clay helmet
in the shallow glint of long winter light
your eyes still buried
in the black visor of the void
in the time that is not yet time

your people walked back from Mexico
to ladder the red mesas with dance
renouncing fire they dreamed fierce stars
to remember the the crash of ancient light

Silent Warrior Kachina
scream in your impelling silence
launched from the rim of a red world
will you beckon another world
swarmed by lancing stars?

Next poem from Indians: Horse

                 03.05.05