The Sundance Wives: Communing with Mesa Verde Spirits

call us new age
guides, we branded
the hides in a pattern
set forth in ministry, the
four horsewomen extolling how
fate rides

a tipi our
church belching
out smoke from ancient
blood wars, Durango not
fond of the evangelist who
preached of the land race to
despise, hoof of the boar in our
fist, we pray between each other's
thighs, what goes up must go down,
All is One

we hear
the spirits
breathe on the
petroglyphs and smell
the raw buffalo blood on
their breath, carvings that
have etched our group soul
knowing those who gave us hell,
we see the eagles circle above watching
the death of things, wings so observant of when
to approach the carcass, paradigm shifts, spirit so
alive with the renewal it brings

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist