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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.
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STAR WALKER
His brother said that if you left the windows open at night, the ghosts would come in and might steal your soul. He didn’t care, he wanted to hear the song the stars sang every night, to see them come down and move in pairs across the mesa, for stars, he knew turned orange when…
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AMONG ELDERS
I sit outside, on the mesa having watched the mauve, fuchsia and coral sky finally concede to night. The two orange orbs sit twenty yards away, staring back and in this moment coyote and I have known each other for moments, and for generations, and we are content. Coyote tells me he was once an…
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WINDSONG
Far out on the mesa the wind sings an alluring song to the melody of the wooden flute. You can sit among the sage, and like the orange orbed coyote around you, stare up at the moon and look for the spirits of the ancient ones that lived in these mountains, the tricksters who…
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THE TRICKSTER RESPONDS
The man liked to cry out into the night, asking questions for which he knew there could be no answers, or if there were, they would be things he would never wish to hear. The coyotes in the hills would listen to his pleas, his entreaties, his moaning, and they would remember the spirits of…
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TRICKSTER
He imagines what it might be like to come down out of the foothills and roam the mesa, unseen unless he wishes, a complete freedom. And even if he chooses to be seen, he can take whatever shape he wishes, and they would see him only as he chose, for only as long as he…
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ÁŁTSÉ HASHKÉ (THE TRICKSTER)
The wind takes up voice as it caresses these mountains, it’s song a lullaby to the coyotes staring at the waning moon. When night grows darkest, they join in the song, a spirit kirtan they have practiced for centuries. Men stare nervously on the mesa at the stars providing faint light, the moon wrapping herself…
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HOPI DREAMING
Look to the East stare at the sky and feel the winds carry away the snow which paints our lands and shrouds our ancestors in a mantle of white. Look to the South see the waters of the river flowing gently to the horizon bringer of the fish spirits, its azure waters washing away to…
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HOW IT IS
I came down out of these mountains once, emerged from clouds that built, blackened the sky, bleached and were gone, I slid on snow pack, I came down into the sage and piñon, lit my fires and purified myself. I ran with jackrabbits, imagined bears were coyote, coyotes cats that might curl in sleep…
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TAOS EVENING
On the mesa between El Prado and Tres Piedras after the sun has been swallowed by the mountains, to the east a fire burns. Countless stars stare down on the shivering sage. The scorpion lunges for the distant hill. The fire grows behind the mountain, the orange disk rises slowly. The smallest stars flee Luna’s…
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an old writer and his words 