Ursa Major

Bear sat by the fire

with Coyote and Raven.

Looking up at the stars,

Coyote slyly asked Bear,

“How long do you reckon it would take

to get to one of them?”

Through the top of his head

Bear shot out,

leaving his furry clay body behind.

He became Ursa Major.

At times he played on the

stars in that constellation.

Around late-night fires

those beings wondered

about this sun and life.  

He trailed purple as he sped in between,

listening for those in need of medicine.

“Good trip?” asked Coyote

as Bear shuddered.

Raven had stolen away;

the mist of dawn was calling.

Coyote

Walks along the trail

of the Milky Way.

Dust seeks dust;

wild seeks wild.

He hears the moon calling.

She is light years away,

leaving dust in his eyes.

Seeds of dreams

as light waxes

and wild wanes.

Doubt

Tired Raven stretched his wings,

his girth causing difficulty

on the downward stroke.

Too much pain—

his cold blue tears

created an ice storm.

A farmer shot at him.

An airplane almost

knocked him from the sky.

“How will I make it

to the top of the tree

before the day of renewal?”

Dragonfly

Bear ponders a dragonfly

landing lightly on his kayak.

“Am I not deserving your touch?”

Summer sleeps me lazily in this cocoon of plastic,

afraid to disrupt lilies and turtles from temporary perches.

My eyes lose most of what surrounds me—

insects, birds, frogs, jumping fish, menagerie clouds.

Your thousand-eye glance appears passive;

you alight from my kayak paddle,

seeing direction and winged prey in multitudes.

Dragonfly regards the world

with her compound eyes,

sees more of me than I know myself,

takes flight from the slipper of day 

in late afternoon light.

Remember the Owl

“Watch the owl

in the woods at night.

How is it related

to the exhale of my breath?”

asked Bear.

“Watch the owl.

Listen to its call.

You know its voice.

You see this area

in your dreams each night,” answered Coyote.

“Watch the owl.

Listen. Remember.”

Avian Bebop

Coyote tapped his foot

to the steady

walking bass line of

Charles Mingus.

“Yes, I like this.

It’s like bedrock,

talking as it moves.”

Coyote invited Raven and his kin

and anyone else who

would come.

After the concert

the sax player said

to the trumpet player,

“Damn, what happened

with our horns today?

They sang!”                                                                                           

They noticed the

crows and ravens

lining the telephone

wires.

Pebbles

We met in an arroyo out

past the neon lights,

Bear, Coyote, and Raven.

We ambled and ate

and gave crumbs to ants.

We took experience

like tiny pebbles in a rattle.

One pebble,

not very musical.

Put many in a gourd

and you have a conversation through the night.

After Raven Stole the Light

1.

Eagle didn’t bother Raven any more.

The old man was too tired to fight.

Raven stole the sun the moon

the stars.

Eagle carried prayers.

2.

On a dark winter day

when the last gasp of a storm

whistled up the night sky,

Raven unleashed light.

Through mischief and mystery

Spring was born.

3.

Raven, fat as night,

sat atop the world tree.

He shook his wings

to settle and roost.

Light shot from his feathers

spreading stars across

the blanket of night.

4.

Bear and Coyote

stumbled down the streets of Machias.

They were drunk, singing old songs

in a tongue not even the Tribes

could understand.

The earth smelled of musk

from seeds long forgotten

on Appaloosa fields.

The telephone wires

buzzed and hummed,

launching another refrain

as light spilled from the lip

of the ocean.

Raven flew with a broad smile.                                      

Cedar, Sage, Sweetgrass, Tobacco

Coyote and Raven laughed

as my claws got caught up

in the fine strands of sweetgrass

I tried to braid.

“Unh,” I swore,

forgetting my human voice.

I couldn’t help myself;

the smell of the earth

and sweetgrass

brought out the claws.

Cedar, sage, sweetgrass, tobacco.

They found me in the blueberry fields

outside of Calais, Maine;

blue smacking lips

created a strange

contrapuntal line

to Raven’s flight.                               

Coyote stole from the edge

of the field glancing cautiously.

Cedar, sage, sweetgrass, tobacco.

“Time for a trip.”

“Unh, unh,” smacked my lips.

Coyote looked west,

stood on two legs

and tucked his hair

underneath his hat.

Cedar, sage, sweetgrass, tobacco.

“What of the medicine?” I asked.

Said Raven, “We’ll be back.”

Warrior of Wide Open Spaces

If you travel vast distances

across the bones of burnt summer

remembering a place you saw

for a brief second thirty miles back,

how can you not be there?

If you happen to catch shadows

dancing in the wind,

you and they have been there,

impermanence the cadence

of a distant drum.

Don’t mourn these places.

You find one another

in ten thousand years

in ten thousand ways.

You are and will be

the warrior of wide open spaces.

Edge of a Note

Moon-glow pearls cast the fields

and soak my jeans.

I dive into silver-frosted water

and swim underneath

to gaze up at the full moon.

In your distant howl

the edge of a note finds me

as I break the surface.

Wolf song reaches that part

I forget in the daylight

when the frenetic world

steals the edges of notes

and the howl fuels my heart

with an inaudible hum.

Mid-stride

You caught me mid-stride,

wild-eyed, confused.

You spoke through trees,

sun, stars,

rivers, mountains, lakes.

“Come home,” you whispered

through the frosted grass.

You sang at night

through Ursa Major,

“Be who you are.”

You caught me mid-stride

in a wild dash,

trying to put distance

from this clay body.

Wake Now

When I first came to your people,

you were scared, sick,

and did not know

the secrets of life’s

abundant garden.

I married a woman and

taught her all I knew.

You are of that family.

Ignorance has a way

of tangling its diseased branches

tightly to the heart.

This happened many times.

Wake now, child, and see, smell, taste,

feel silence and abundance

hidden within her robe.                               

Bear lifts his sleeping son

to greet the dawn.