Roxanne Swentzell: How the spirits came to speak

A poem inspired by a picture of Roxanne Swentzell, one of life’s truly great Native American artists.

Some where between the beginning
And the end of eternity,
The spirits conspired to speak,
For they were without a voice.
Their words unknown, unspoken,
Visible only in the art of creation.
Their hands were in the earth,
In the breath of the wind, the
Cooling showers of spring,
The birth giving heat of the sun,
The nurturing light of the moon.
The spirits had shaped and molded
All that ever was, or would be.
On a mesa swept with dust
Came they together to wait.
Time passed and time changed.
A pueblo rose from the clay
The spirits opened a dark hole in the dirt,
Sending the blind Mole into its depths
Bringing into the light the people,
The Tewa, to live in the Pueblo.
On the mesa called Turtle Mountain,
The people honored the spirits
In dance, in song, in pottery.
Yet, the spirits waited,  watching.
And, when the people had grown,
When the Red Willow People
Had found their true place,
Binding their hearts with Corn Mother,
A perfect seed was formed.
At the moment of that conception,
In this new small living seed,
The spirits joined their hands,
And gave to it their words.
The seed carried with in it
The unspoken art of creation,
The unknown voice of the spirits.
In the night, the seed grew, blossoming.
Its heart belonged to the Tewa,
Its hands to the voice of the spirits.
At morning,  when the sun began to rise,
The seed came into the world as a girl child,
She was named Roxanne, for the dawn.

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour

The Anasazi and time wait

House-on-fire by Illryion.

The Anasazi learned how to capture time.
Corn husk wrapped, the shaman placed it
In the stone laid foundation of eternity,
Carefully, thoughtfully, purposefully.
Tucked into a ledge of rock, hidden,
From what or from who, time only knows.
Holding its breath time slumbered.
How many seconds has it counted, dreamed,
Blanketed in a thousand years of waiting.
Vultures soar and ravens cry, remembering.
They were here before time and remain now.
Feathered vessels of forgotten souls,
The birds sing the Anasazi songs, calling.
The builder’s lives have fled this place,
Spirit hands remain pressing upon rock,
Their sweat the spring dripping, waiting,
An imprint upon consciousness, upon time.
The stacked stones the strength and belief
Of the people, the owners of this moment,
This grandeur, this creation, this forever.
Ask the question of these dusty walls, why?
A whisper returns, “Release me and I will tell.”
Time waits bound by the past, by the sacred corn,
Waiting for the people to return, they are gone.
As we will all be one day, except for time.
The shaman hands cannot unwrap the sacred husks,
And so, the Anasazi and time wait, till the end of time.

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour

Carins

Across a palo verde covered mesa,
Alone I take a sun baked trail.
Animal trace disturbs the path,
There is only lingering residue,
Contemplation is gravel underfoot.
Where does it lead?
Who is to know?
Not a visible sign is seen,
No cairns to mark the way.
Before me a faint depression,
An imprint upon the ground,
Ancient, beckoning, leading on,
My steps shuffle across the stone.
Pressed against a rocky face,
I clasp the life chiseled there,
Tiny hand holds smooth with use,
Spiritual guides shape a soul’s journey.
Am I being tried, tested?
Am I worthy?
One more step and the way is clear.
Before me rises a cavern of my beliefs.
Filled with the shaped stones of memories,
Secure from the outside,
Guarded from the invasion of time.
Ghosts haunt this place,
Voices speak from a gurgling spring,
The laughter of lives echoes the canyon.
The walls an art gallery of dreams,
Painted images forgotten in stillness live.
Stepping through a doorway,
It is now as it was then,
As it will always be.
Implements shaped of clay and wood,
The broken pottery of creation,
Scattered pieces of passage,
Primitive and pure the moment looms.
Sadness fogs my heart,
A great aching pain of loss.
I weep for their passing.
The wind whistles through ancient stone,
The people whisper with it.
They are watching.
Or, is it the heat of the day,
Shimmering visions to trick the mind?
The walls of this citadel
Silent witnesses to the ages.
My presence a violation,
I have lifted the sarcophagus lid,
Peering in at a desiccated corpus,
A reflection of tomorrow.
With a heavy heart head bowed,
I retreat as I had come.
Making sure my passage is unseen,
Only footprints left in the dust.
Footsteps will be eaten by life,
What the soul knows cannot be devoured.

Copyright: 2008, Donald Harbour

Full Crow Moon

The Full Crow Moon hung in the sky,
Ravens and magpies caw a plaintive cry.
Winter shook the hand of night at last,
Departing with the worms’ first cast.
There is a stirring of life in the earth,
Mother Nature’s belly waits for birth.
All that has slept the long lodge night,
Awakens to the Creators’ warming light.
We pray to east with last year’s sacred corn,
The sun whispers, “Arise, once again be born.”
The dawn is pierced with the orbs golden ray,
As the people rejoice spring’s first day.

Copyright: 2008, Donald Harbour

The Feather

Magpies perched a craggy branch,
The canyon shimmered far below.
Mountain breasts of mother earth,
Dusted by spring’s last breath of snow.
The smell of the air was crisp and clean,
Ages carried upon a gentle breeze.
Ancestors chanted their sacred songs,
Verses rustled last autumn’s dried leaves.
There is a point in one’s dream quest,
Where the spirits meet together,
A council called to pass the pipe,
As a young man receives a feather.
In the twilight of the departing day,
Rose I to inhale this dreamer’s smoke.
To stand as a wondering fearful child,
A sapling to become a full grown oak.
Passed before me in ghostly dance,
The coyote – the buffalo, elk, and deer,
To remind me through this journey of time,
Life is carried on the point of a spear.
I felt the prick of a giant claw,
A mere touch of a talon upon my skin,
The Great Spirit ordered the eagle summoned,
To clasp my seeking mortal heart within.
Thus he held me in soaring flight,
Until the earth began to fade away,
He whispered to me among the gathered stars,
Then, returned before the first light of day.
The eagle grasped his mottled chest,
Plucked a feather and cast it to the air.
It floated over the canyons stony depths,
Landing in the dark below I knew not where.
He said, “The feather is but a symbol,
The path you take the feather’s flight,
As in the dark you slumber until dawn,
The feather is your path to light.”
He placed me in deep peaceful sleep,
Upon the rocky ledge where I began,
This timeless passage one must travel,
When, a boy attempts to become a man.
Awakening from the night dream sleep,
All creation called out my name.
I gazed about me with the sun’s first rays,
But the place I lay was not the same.
There was a melody of joy about the hills,
A crown of light over where I stood,
A feeling of knowledge and wonderment,
Of belonging, of feeling all that is, was good.
Raising my arms to praise the sun’s warmth,
I looked and saw a feather in my hand.
The Great Spirit’s voice echoed in my mind,
“Go my son, for now among the people – you are a man.”