on the occasion of Lance’s birthday.
Gerald Schwartz sang:
We are the brass locusts, as tides wane/ and the air is rich/ with what would rather be forgotten;/ and hard on the moving/ on these changing winds/ we are the eternal locusts sounding our sharp despair:/ This rasp of autumn, this rasp of heat,/ metal of prophecy but not of peace,/ awl in the ear to make us/ bondsmen here,/ brand in the flesh of mind;/ beneath the beat/ of sun, of light rain, of dazzling/ earth/ we lose the visioned,/ the encompassing eye;/ we are the brass locusts boring into the noon/ speaking for the alien/ and all to come:/ the fools lift their heads,/ remembering cold,/ regathering wisdom,/ as the sun grows old. …… The Very Best of this Earth-Arrival Anniversary to you! Cheers!
Lance Henson sang in reply:
I saw beetle…
carrying a piece of moonlight toward a secret place…
fish waiting there…
in the lighted water, out of our Great Mother’s womb,
weaved into this patterning of life,
where Sundance and peyote songs thread into war and sorrow…
laying these burdens at the door of peace…
hoping someone is home.
we are home.
thanks for the honoring.
