Living the Dream

You, who’s every breath becomes tragedy
who has lost the color of the day
and air is a shadow you slowly suck on,
I know how you burn, slow as cedar cinder
in an untended pit.  Red and glowing
warning that it is but a moment until you flare.

You know in the bowl of your gut
what you have been fed; sticks, sweetgrass,
tobacco and an ocean of water to put you out.
But you simmer and I see the wave of it
seep up to the moon as she pulls you home.

Once, your flames lit the sentinels,
broiled the moose and crackled the fish,
cleared the way and burned the hand
laid upon you.  Yes, laid upon you.
Charcoaled and burnt that meat
but still, you rallied to meet the sun.

Once, women fed you good wood,
sat beside you and shared their stories,
tended you like a child and honored you.
It was futile to think you could blaze alone
after they went to bed to be warmed
by the back of a loose spine.

Simmer, smudge, send the scent of you
into the camp and the chaos
and I shall stir you so your orange feathers
leap to the deep throb of the drum
and we shall dance together
until our anger leaps to catch the stars.

Tags: Poems //