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Hot July wind, dry white cumulus
drifting, black vultures circling
rising thermal currents
the warm land
the scent of fallen life.
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–Quilla
July 6, 2016 | Categories: Meditations | Tags: death, july, land, native American, nature poetry, poetry, Vultures, wind | Leave a comment
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Summer Evening Lament
In memory of David (“Joby”)
A dear one gone from us,
his spirit risen like a bird, flown.
Finally, heat and light go up—
the long day’s sun-baked stones.
Faintly, Navaho flute notes
float upward, into the pyre
of sunset clouds,
these lost threads of Pinon smoke
find deep shrouds of summer sky.
Our keen hearts hone, and listen:
just a slight dry breeze
stirs the tall grass stems,
the silent, summer-heavy leaves.
Cicadas keep that incessant wild
droning, some ancient yearning sorrow—
our quiet grief, screaming in the trees.
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–Quilla
July 6, 2014 | Categories: Meditations | Tags: Carlos Nakai, death, grief, grieving, Indian Flute, love, memory, native American, native American flute, Navaho, Pinon, resurrection, smoke, spirit, summer wind, wind | Leave a comment
Yesterday, you and I—a mother and her half-wild son,
sat talking on your porch, the dwindling autumn light
a Sabbath afternoon.
Earlier, we each had heard, received, believed
the lucid words of the Risen One.
^
We’d both been travelling.
Almost predictably, we’d disagreed before we left.
But we let that fall behind us once again, the way
November rains sweep away the bitter leaves,
sunken into the deeper pools.
^
We sat together two, three hours sharing journeys,
bringing them into one journey.
The fading light was stealing warmth from our bare arms.
We did not want to leave, or go inside.
^
All the while, leaves kept spinning down
around and through our words.
Black vultures were wheeling overhead
above the brown and russet oaks.
In a few hours, the autumn stars would be circling.
^
I watched those old grim Cherokee wrinkles gather
the rim of your mouth (like that of your mother’s)
as you listened, vigilant to catch the small prey
like a hawk—what might and would go wrong.
You taught me well to do the same.
^
Behind the silvering halo of your hair the copper sun
did softly fall. Strands of spider silk glistened
in the bare limbs of that young Sourwood tree,
the one Dad had planted
four summers back, the year before he died.
^
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^
November 6, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Cherokee, conflict, forgiveness, letting go, listening, loving, native American, November, resolving conflict, Tsalagi | Leave a comment
Ruach 333, by Quilla 