Invocation #3 Drain this urn, O Earth, of its poisons! Shed your skin, perverse in its gods! Grow new glyphs, new talismans, Grow new totems, root the Man Firmly, soil-bound, bend his eyes Mossward, woodward, utter Caterwaulings, groaning Bark and limb, and hootings Hollered nightside, bend his ears thus. The Man must find his Cave, sans Car bombs and crude, implore Griz and wolf, O Earth, to return!- Yahweh, Jesus, Allah--begone! A Spider Dies on Sappho I had thought to read a fragment or two from that priestess of Aphrodite born from foam and the balls of heaven. But I saw the spider's carcass atop the spine, its shell light as a dandelion seed, so I set the book down, read one of my own, instead. Kimo Sake, a.k.a. Buffalo Tipper, called Down the spirits of the Rosebud Lakota- Ta-Tonka, Ik-Tomi-to the Fire Giggler's yurt in Custer County, Colorado- Mezcal in hand. Half the worm's white body was his; & half belonged to the old growth beard of Holy Belly, "...who snores like my grandma," according to Mountain Lion Girl, then struck by her revelation: "My grandma snores like a man!" To doze off to guitar, mandolin, Cisco's flute and "Shady Grove", and wake to the last stars, to piss; then wake again, to broadtailed hummingbird. We all saw the lights that night, Ik-tomi weaving her web, darting swiftly through the aspen by the pee-pah-poo, Ta-tonka dropping like a meteor in the western sky only to curve, and rise again like a bird carved of starlight. Kimo Sake saw a hovering, bright gold like the flame of a kerosene lantern, though larger than any star, and brighter than Venus. Many were the ghost stories told, the witching of Crazy Cloud in West Virginia; the Wyoming bride who, a century ago, snapped her neck at the foot of the stairs to her new house and wouldn't let Trapper's Daughter sleep, rocking her head from side to side. We lie-my jasmine, cinnamon and sandalwood-scented woman, my owl-eyed girl, and I-beneath a blue glass charm, beneath vertebrae and jawbones, half-burnt sage, geode windchimes and a dreamcatcher. With talismans such as these, we fear no evil, though, in retrospect, I wake with the hatchet too close to my head for comfort-on the floor at the foot of the cold Franklin woodstove. Let me accept death as casually as I do meadowlark and magpie; the dumbchatter of traffic on Highway 50 along the eastern slope of the Sangres; the aftershock heat of Buzzard Bait chili in Howard, Colorado's roadside cook-off; the cloud of red dust in the wake of a rusty pickup; giving the bird to a cell-phone driver fucking up traffic in the canyon, cutting corners; the trilling Aum of the Arkansas River below a stretch of whitewater where we cool our heels, procrastinate the trip home and splash each other's faces. At home in Evergreen, I shower off the sweat and dust-matter, watch a gray stream belch down the drain. Here's a spider curled up in a ball of water. It must be dead, but I can't bring myself to flush it; I drop it in a jar, instead, where it springs to life, tries to climb the round glass wall. I set it loose atop the pronghorn- skull that guards my home. Placerville, Colorado Across the river, across the flaming Tongues of the San Miguel, the golden Eagle lately circling alights on clifftop, Black against sunlight's sacrificial splash, The bloody San Juans turning starward. Here, the crash-and-chortle of mad Wave and lappings silences the dim, Customary chatter of dashed ancestors Who vie, every minute, for my ear, Murmuring coffin ships and pogroms. Here, Wahtola, a woman named Foam-crest; here, the foam; here, Her soft-spoken husband, Eric, A carpenter; here, my daughter, Bunny's patched ear in her left hand, A stone for splashing in her right. And here, this log bench. More Than I this sunflower, its westward Bend, and the tickle of a northern Gust across its rays. I finger Rattlesnake-skin on my wide-brimmed Hat, stroke my fat beard, a gift of Nature. I think I might crown my chipped Tooth come January, a front-tooth Of gold to cap a geezer's grin. Main Page This site sponsered by