God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 12: GOD’S DRUM

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About This Book

A sequence of poems evokes dawn through dusk, prairie winds and dust, ritual dances and spirit songs, and mythic reckonings framed as a red apocalypse. Later cycles portray terraced Pueblo landscapes, potters, corn maidens, and ruined pueblos, while final pieces invoke Aztec gods and cosmology. The language is lyrical and imagistic, alternating intimate observation of natural life with ceremonially inflected reflections on death, renewal, and the drumlike rhythms of the earth.

GOD’S DRUM

The circle of the Earth is the head of a great drum;

With the day, it moves upward—booming;

With the night, it moves downward—booming;

The day and the night are its song.

I am very small, as I dance upon the drum-head;

I am like a particle of dust, as I dance upon the drum-head;

Above me in the sky is the shining ball of the drum-stick.

I dance upward with the day;

I dance downward with the night;

Some day I shall dance afar into space like a particle of dust.

Who is the Drummer who beats upon the earth-drum?

Who is the Drummer who makes me to dance his song?