This Ancient Land

The sky emits strawberry milkshake
Melting over distant mountain tops

Revealed in silhouette

They plant firm and deep
Like viking linemen
Who forgot the signal
34 57 29 Hut!
But planted, they remain
To the rush around them

The shoulders hunch
Shake a bit
As the wind
Elder to the ancient
Barely gives notice

In this new dawn of light
His tuft of trees
Like hair
-no, feathers
In a warriors
headdress
Prove his heart yet beats
Above anchored legs

Beyond and higher
His father stands
Like a heart-shot moon
The frozen white
Heavy on his brows
And it is here
Wind and age make love
Spawning the prophecy
Of death

Below, and
As children in daycare,
The earth plays wild, while
Snow flies fresh and silly
Like a pillow fight gone bad

And the pines stretch,
A million tiny erections
In search of a moist womb

The mesas beyond,
crouch low and grumpy
playing drill Sergeant
To the sands below
While sage protest to cactus
We have rights, too!

This land has stood
Long before the language
That defines it
But sorrow shakes
In lost translation

Where once great bears
And the hungry she wolf
Vied and grappled
In the way of now
The rising mist reveals
Fences and telephone poles
In vile trespass

Where once the Apache brave
Chased a wild stallion
Whose neck fumed
The thunder of freedom
Men in blaze neon
Gather the litter of spoil

What was before
Shall be again
And again and again and again
Til the Elder wind stands still
In surrender
And spreads her skirts
Over a place, a way

Devoured in a taming
It was helpless to stop