Poem: Vision

This early poem, published six years ago by Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, accompanied my first sparks of awareness concerning shamanism, its power and inspiration.

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Vision

no answer from sand, quartz, or air,
their shattery, dissolving jazz.
none from clouds,
their addictive white thighs.
stones spew ochre
as i kick, as i watch a cactus
cry puzzled flowers away
frond by frond
into a pitcher of shadow.

i see now
this piracy we call time,
long spider whose legs never touch,
has no poison,
not even microbes, not even flesh.
nothing except a bitter fluid in the mind.

nothing should die
without sending its heat into a
naïve sunset. why must perfect mice
fracture off rattlesnake swords,
suffer a billion times,
as many times as there are daughters?

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7/7/25... 

The original title of this poem was Hopi Vision.  But I can't remember now why I expropriated the Hopi's way-of-being.  There was a book, popular in some circles at that time, about 'Hopi Time' and how there is a whole different way of looking at time, based on Native American cultures.  I think it was called Hopi Time.