Hear the bells in their tiniest voices Dripping as water.... Embracing you We love you... Its sound sings.... We are you.... Where human dreams of freedom are a river That cannot die.... Irrawaddy Washita... We are you.... We are you.... Its sound sings.... For Kyal Sin, known as Angel Young activist killed by Burmese police Irrawaddy, Burmese river © 2021 Lance Henson
Entities
Wuksin hamstuts eyo hasts
Flickering candle
Barreled fire
Flame of wood
Flame of bones that have lost
Their echos….
Where farewell floats in its
Wit ano I yohe…….
From the continuing series.
Cheyenne…
Everything that makes light….
River of tongues….
© 2021 Lance Henson
vo’e
vo’e*
these are the ones who enfold light
causing it to strike the earth
the ones who
caress silence
their older sister
the ones that hover over
the wintering water
the ones who spin
their angry eye upon us
the ones who gather above us
as we dream
these are the ones who unfurl
the grown moon...
*vo’e: Cheyenne for clouds
© 2021 Lance Henson
entities phase 4
a blue line through this cold dawn Motse eoeve neh visto Winter Winter the ones who do not shudder at themselves singing here.... Sweet Medicine watching Tsistsisas prophet © 2021 Lance Henson
entities phase 3
Spider crawling out of its skin Thousand eyed staring at its webs aflame On a field of torn symmetries and sharded wind This is the promise kept for us Its melted light Its sieve of hope Its trickle of bones Its inauguration of words again.... © 2021 Lance Henson (poem-image)
entities (part 2)
These are the ones that stay with us, dawns of voices waking inside their secret language of journeying where the living and others traveling inside us are a movement of dreams tasting our breath as we waken….here are the fingerprints of rain on our windows watching us as we turn out of sleep into the world
© 2021 Lance Henson (poem-image)
entities (part one)
entities
Raven watching
Words float by
Words without wingsDreams on fire at the edge
of a winter camp
In a soup of blood and ash….Eh maiyun ahuta
You will see only one of you
Without eyes….
Singing in a weeping rain….Dog soldier song
From the stronghold
©2021 Lance Henson
dawn…
dawn…..
A beaver slaps the water of a still creek
The unmarked graves where you
have lain for a hundred years
Awakening on the frozen back of a sleeping
Coyote
Far from where
the demons reside
As the temperature drops to its knees
We watch from our hidden balcony
Inside a sheet of rain….
Men folding themselves into paper planes
That cannot fly….
From the stronghold
Badger song
December 8 20.
Now you have awakened
Now you have awakened
In another place
What will you sing in your sweet voice
The Cheyenne horses you are following
Taking you home….
Your form made of eternity and silent rain…
Brother….
We carry you with us
You are a part
Of our belongings….
Memorium
For my brother
John William West
Kit Fox Clan
Cheyenne Nation of Oklahoma
1952/2020
Ainoh
Ainoh
Scenting the small deepening in the leaves
Arrived from the lighted rivers
The haunted
silent rivers
The
bloodied
dying rivers….
Where at their banks winter prepares its messengers….
This is the day of absences
The day of singing….
Where the dead and the living
Are inside us….
Tsistsistas name for winter hawk
From the photo of my sister barbara bartlett
Who ainoh visited for two days in queens ny.
