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Ancient Memories

Looking through the sparkling water,
painted faces of braves and warriors appear,
and vanish within the misty haze.

A chief all motionless does softly rest
upon his funeral pyre,
connecting supernatural life force to the above here after,
whilst feathers of the bold eagle dance and sway
among the solar wind of change.

Throughout the sleeping canyons of antiquity,
footsteps pound the red earth
in ceremonial dance patterns,
awakening long forgotten memories.

Wolves and coyotes travel in mass exodus as lost souls,
across fossilised bones of their own clans and nations,
daring not to stop in fear of white hunter.

Seven Apache horsemen throw decorated feathered lances
into the baking desert sand,
acknowledging song of venomous rattle snake.
Their eyes held toward the sky,
they chant in rhythmic holy song.

The forceful winter wind howls its naked breath
through the crumbling decaying hole of a buffalo horn,
and recites the endless song
for the re-gathering of the people.

The sky pulsating in its anger cloaks itself and appears
as burning fields of charcoal,
turning its natural energy into atmospheres of scolding ash,
spewing forth winged Thunderbeings
who rise and descend upon the waves of time,
fusing supreme forces of existence
into moveable motions of grandeur.

Jeffrey Woods

Copyright © 1997 Jeffrey Woods. All rights reserved.

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