silence is heavy

Silence is heavy
As it carries all its loved ones

Ones whose silence lives in the water
Ones whose voices begin and continue in a language
We have yet to learn

It sings in the between breath of the newborn

It weeps with the hearted ones whose prayer is the dawn

And the last breath of a child and the last breath of a
Mother and the last breath of a soldier
is followed by silence

We see our silence
Not as we knew it
And we wish to return to it

Though we are too changed….

From the dead zone texts
Poem number five

17 December 2016

 

 

 

the river sings

The river sings….as always
As all rivers….
The ones who nurture it…

It remembers you

In its flowing canticles of joy
It carries the grief of all who suffer for it

You who have bathed in it
Anointed now by its one prayer for you….

It flows for the ones who have no voice….

Their silence eternal…

Healing the broken shadows of man….

For the water protectors of standing rock

25 November 16

I burn silver sundance sage

I burn silver sundance sage….I burn red homeland cedar….
I send the ashes..

                              From a feathered tip

Toward the massacred

                                              Who are everywhere…..  

From the stronghold

June15 16

Memories meet one another

Memories meet one another on the way
Without knowing who they are

These are the times of passing….

Here are the lives that have returned
Who cannot remember their eyes
Blinking in the darkened forest….

Listening for their hands that are crawling toward
The light…
Where they left their promises…

In a broken sleep

Of moth flight…..

9 June 2016

 

 

Guarani

Nanos hame’

Running in your veins…..
In a sacramental night
River….
In your dawn  misted breath

As you pray….
Wholeness all around…

Guarani….

Nanos hame’
Tsistsistas for Panther

25 May 16′

Aleppo

From the dead zone hymnal
Vanishing in the void 

Shadowless in our breathing

eyes closed as we listen to the

Disappearing
Vacant as rainless sky

Blood on the pale stones

Souls….

             torn

                                 Darkness..

3/15/16 

For Berta Caceres

A river has no name..the sound it knows of wind
And moonlight..
It’s singing self..
It’s long memory
Bereft of longing..
Full of human invasion
Human crossings
Animal crossings..

Rests in its essential movements..

Shaman know..

It is possible for a river
To sing inside a soul..

It is you..

For berta caceres

From the stronghold
5 March 2016

Cultivating the Silence of a Hungarian

Snowstorm….
The first few flakes cascading
As small messages over the garden…

Having shapeshifted out of an Italian sky

From a swirling wind of tumultuous joy
The acidity of America still strong I’m my senses….

Now in this quiet
Of winter

Transformations of sorrow and frozen rain
Passing through the window glass
To sit with me….

Shivadom maheo neh nameho….

On the frozen plains
Of Oklahoma….

28 November 2015
Gabors smoking room

“Creator pity my beloved”

For Jim Harrison

Secret

You found it in a rusted can of earth and worms
In a hollow birch tree along a foggy river…
In the wintered whisky breath of a Chippewa
Walking toward the oblivion of a white city….

In the eyes of a woman sitting in tall grass….

In the half blindness that allowed you to see further
It gave you words forged in motions not used  by common man….

Made of a crows wing it gave you flight
Made of a Bears tooth it gave you a singing in an undiminished voice….

Made of rain it gave you love….

In the windy light snows ….among the rusty dawns of desert
And sorrowed  plains….

The secret….

For Jim Harrison
28 March 2016

From the Dead Zone Hymnal

Vanishing in the void
Shadowless in our breathing

eyes closed as we listen to the

Disappearing
Vacant as rainless sky
Blood on the pale stones

Souls….

torn

Darkness..

3/15/16

Aleppo