Pilgrimage Americus

Creation

A solitary vulture in a tree (or two or three) 
attracts but little notice.  
Perhaps a fox observes it 
or a crow.
The stars shine down curved tunnels.

Not in haste, 
the dimmest stars recall when time and place 
first shattered into being.  
Fires traced 
the meteoric sparrows as they fell.

The world was not idea then 
and snow that fell in those days was not snow 
as we have come to know it.  
Ash does the final dusting even now.

And so the day begins.
The cortex spins.
A hundred vultures foliate a tree.  
Strong winds divide the darkness 
and the rain 
affirms again the firmament of sky.

Exile

The day begins to westward.
Hard men ride 
undaunted by companions.  
Fear and pride have seared them like a sword.
most of them young.

 The landscape is entrancing.

 Whirlwinds dance their own erratic ways.
The clock that ticks
inside the head runs fast, runs fast, runs slow.

The ticking is contagious.

Grains of sand digested by the wind 
are spit again to scour and mold the slickrock.
Like the snow on heat distorted peaks, 
wind does not cease. 

 The white sky is a furnace inside out.

Anger

Men live by God's commandments, 
so men wait 
until the storm abates and floods recede 
to loose their pent up anger;

watch birds rise to catch the rising thermals, 
mount and ride 
until the target, ripe and rancid meat, 
attracts the one and many

to where birds squeeze 
and elbow for a place to rip and choke
on flesh rotted to ribbons,
tear and stoke 

until the breast is gorged, 
then with a croak, fly heavy to a tree.
Men light a smoke and set tall grass to burning 
for a joke.

The Trail

The heads are red and swollen, 
bodies swart from eating mangled corpses.  
What they fart 
another hand has measured and laid low. 

The wind across the river stirs the reeds.

The eyes, like flecks of pus in blood-stained snow, 
recall dark sluggish waters 
and the cloud 
that passed once loudly over.  

Paths of mud.

The cattle walked dry shod and were their loud cantankerous normal selves.  
They did not sense the fear or note 
the danger.
The reeds across the river stir in wind, 
but breeze that drove dust devils 
dropped by noon.
Men use their sweat-stained shirts 
to wipe wet skin.

Wilderness

To pray for mercy is to ask for prayer 
and birds are quick to answer, 
quick to pluck 
first eyeballs, then the soft parts.

Birds survive.

The shy and tiny desert dove survives 
and love survives 
or maybe just hangs on. 

Men suck thick plants for moisture.
Feet kick dust.
Blood forms a crust on skin.
If licked, lips peel.

Snakes lie back in deep shadows
where it's cool
and men perceive snakes' wisdom,
so have stopped.

 It's night before they travel.
They are lost and seek the sky for water
while far off 
from rocks a white stream tumbles
that recedes one step for each step taken.

It’s clear to all
that when death comes, 
it won't be soon enough.

 Promised Land

The day men crossed the mountains, 
they could feel 
a change in air: they babbled 
and were blessed.

A child was born as promised   men with wives 
arrived to what they thought of as a home.

The crops they planted prospered 
and the herds 
brought wealth beyond compare.  

They didn't care 
that strangers lived among them. 
How strangers fared 
concerned them as their own.  

 And so they were. 

The strangers also claimed them,  
took their name, so came to use 
that name 
and so believed.

 The Curse

Now they believe no longer. 
Crops have failed.
The children that they loved 
are moved or jailed.

The chickens give no eggs, 
the cows no cheese.
The land is dry and barren.  

Topsoil blows 
and drifts about like snow.  
The land is cursed. 

 Men curse the vultures' eyes for what they see.

 Remembrance

I come now once again to this bare land. 
For welcome, receive complaint
and argument.
Here fat toads sit. 
Birds pick cows’ backs for insects.
Horses stand as painted 
tail to head.

Once, tall trees cut 
were sawed by mills to lumber.
Log trucks shook 
glass panes 
in puttied windows.
Thus, was each great prize ravaged,
despoiled, used up.

Death blows along the pavement, 
pushing dust, as if land were the ocean 
and dust the foam.

I walk beside the sea, a single gull, 
but cannot make a sound. 
The westward trail is ended,
all wealth worn out.

What was returns to desert.
The once great plain,
absent water and tender care,
has become just that.

The pilgrimage is ended:
once was, no longer fact.