I once walked atop a butte
Each footstep greeted by a cloud of red dust
The scent of desert sage
The pain of us lost in relief —
Canyon de Chelly in the near distance
Arches another day
Soon Mesa Verde —
A promise to our shared forgetting:
My travelogue and a sandpainting of a medicine man
Dancing on one foot
Rattle in hand
I believed through amnesia
I would transcend that ancient wound
Naked to the elements
Nowhere to hide the edges of me
I trusted time to carve me into something less brittle
Long after you left this fractured rock
I dreamed of you
Alone in a silo —
A large tin can with sides shiny and hot
The top a lattice of rusting iron
You seated at the center
Water pooling above your knees
The medicine men of the Dagara tribe
Claimed dead need mourners
To shed tears enough
To make the river of grief flow
Carrying the departed to the Spirit World
You waited for the medicine
You never gave
Still, I could not leave you there
I continued the journey
Beyond the Indians of the Southwest
Further than the Dagara of Burkina Faso
Until I found Shinto atop a mountain in Japan
Surrounded by shark-filled waters
There were other seekers
Who had also heard of Rabbit
Who deceived Shark into safe passage
This trickster spirit
Filled with potential
Graced with forgiveness
I knew you were Shark —
Your secrets safe from detection
Your life hidden from view
Nothing ever came to trick you
Except the end
I carry you now
Each day with a prayer:
Reach the heart of Kami
Grow your medicine pouch
With ointments of purity
Tinctures of happiness
One day we will greet again:
This time where the river meets the ocean
And the patriarch flows home to love.
