~Spirit Bone by Sal Martinez
There it was,
in the breath of
children of the red earth; in the hair black as Raven who fell feathers
for flesh and laughter; in the heart for spirits to skip rocks through,
Stream of Reverie, to teach the chosen ways of the doctor; in the feet
that aided the trails for travelors to trade in old dust from dawn to
dusk; in the mind blue as the sky with nimbus shapeshifters and Flickers
gambling seeds; in the hands merged in the world of saline, salmon’s
rainbow, and snail shell twirl clothed in symbols.
There it was,
in
the teachings of Turtle who bears marks on his back from own shot
arrows into the noon sky, who died for the sin of a stubborn tempted boy
who thought his back a shell, who was drowned by Resentment Tribe to
bottoms of the Lake, then lived again, with the smile of Elders.
Now, it is in the eyes of Coyote who fashioned the world1,
who
watches from top of the World Mountain, who clips unwanted toe nails to
world’ soil which plant them-fungus-selves; enemies to diverse plethora
of idiosyncratic arts, who echoes his astonished horror in voids of
mechanical death wheels:
Oh… shit.
