an old writer and his words

  • TONGUES

    Ninety-six years ago today Women gained the right to vote. It would be another five before those who preceded the lot of us were blessed with citizenship, the least we could offer, after our prior gifts of disease, alcoholism and down sizing. Who, our forebears must have imagined, wouldn’t want to live somewhere they had…

    Lou Faber

  • ANCESTORS

    He clearly remembers standing on the edge peering down into the almost bottomless canyon, listening to the narrow river slide across the rocks thrown down by its walls over millennia. He was a visitor here, knew he would stay only briefly, then leave, his spirit hiding among the rocks in the nearby mountains, staring down…

    Lou Faber

  • MORNING

    one thousand fingers gently fold one thousand cranes our tears are countless. red sandstone plateaus coyote stalks through scrub pine chindi howl assent in the Norway Spruce pine cones threaten to descend. Squirrels sit waiting.

    Lou Faber

  • OF THEE I SING

    My ancestors stole your tongue and left you mute in a world you could not grasp.                                            Now as I search for words of forgiveness I can find none, for my voice is clogged with…

    Lou Faber

  • FEATHERS

    He crouched in the hollow in the ancient cliff careful not to disturb the bones scattered just in the shadows behind. He waited patiently until he heard the sweep of the great wings and the mighty bird alighted on its nest. He reached out quickly and plucked two feathers never more, and pulled back into…

    Lou Faber

  • CHINDI

    Drum beats rhythm turtle rattle shakes Night walks eating sky earth swallows its children. Wolf howls stalking souls.

    Lou Faber

  • HIGH DESERT DREAM

    The mountains rise, bluer blacker than real against a faded sky. The ancestors have fled these hills, no orange eyes stare out of the night, no voices of the trickster take up chorus against the stars.

    Lou Faber

  • AWAITING

    He strains mightily to hear the sound of a wolf. He knows the voice of coyote well, and here they are ever-present. But wolf is a different creature. He knows coyote will try to take the shape and voice of wolf. But an elder such as he can tell the difference. Wolf is his totem,…

    Lou Faber

  • GONE

    The salmon people don’t live here anymore you have moved them up the river, then inland so they no longer need to wander. The salmon do not swim here anymore you have dammed the rivers to draw out their power and penned the mighty fish where the river first licks the sea. The eagle doesn’t…

    Lou Faber

  • CHORUS

    The man sits, waiting patiently for the wolf to arrive. It has been far too long, this wait, as the Wolf has his lair in the distant mountain, and has little use for the people in the city, in the place where the man sits waiting. The man is sure they met once, although he…

    Lou Faber