This work presents a dialogue between spirits of the past and present in the southwestern region of the United States. It was published in Under Sonoran Skies, Prose and Poetry in the High Desert.

The channel pathways are rivulets no more,
Since eons of floods have stormed
Across this desert plane.

I sift the sands of yesterday,
Straining to glimpse your passing--
Some trace you’ve left for us to glean.
Kernels few of yellow, red and black,
Like the lick of fires up your caverns dancing.
Scraps of leather, bone and shard,
Barren or tooled to your artisan imaginings.

* * *

As frozen tears draped timeless night,
A shooting star burst through
To trace a changing sky.

Sit awhile and you will hear the sand
Fly upward through the trees.
How can that be, Mother of my Mother?
Asked a child, reaching to stroke
The face of the moon.

Gazing beyond, the ancient one mused.
Here on the gorge, the trees bend to kiss
The path we have trod upon so long,
Just as the Earth stretches to kiss her progeny,
Now risen beyond her erstwhile dreams.

* * *

We come from a time
Past your knowing,
Past your kenning.


You may hear the whisper of
Our melodies on the wind,
Catch hints of our soft harmonies within.
Your hands touching the river’s flow,
May feel the rhythms of our dance.
But the bits and pieces trapped within the meadow,
Will never let you walk in the fullness of our lives.

***

You may step across time’s shadows,
But can never linger longer than
A sojourner within the circle of our firelight.