Poem 145: Chaco

above us, the sun,
a lasered sky blue
hardened disc,
throwing down
heat onto the
painted desert stones,
and when refracted
by the mirror of thin air
it picks up
and hazily pulls in
this southwestern
ark of light
narrowly floating upon
this newly serrated air
held ironically above
the heat hazed, black bead,
red rock, and yellow
flowering of sand
that continues to chant
the dark of light in you,
slowly bending
the horizon
around the canyon
as casting shadows
bare the edge
of night, stalking a skin
that dreams
of dancing circles around
what we already know
of this beauty speared
by this old man of a sun.

To whom drum dancing
beads perspiration
falling into the rattle
of dust
and the humming
of the moccasined
snakeskin,
as the eagle
falls into the canyon
straddling claw
and feather,
shedding blood
and water sheltered
by walls that
sing of the traveling
songs, knifed in
echoes that ring
and resound
on the whetted bone,
sharpening the gait
of the ancients
now sleep-walking
to all outward signs
but fully awake
and shining
in the Indian stone
where sky shouldered,
corn belted
Chaco dances for you
in the greened valley
where the horned toad
and the wind is.