God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 14: THE SUN’S LAST RAY

Open in WeRead

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.

THE SUN’S LAST RAY

Upon the blue mountain I stood,

Upon the mountain as he sank into the Rivers of Night:

The camps of the clouds in the heavens were shining with evening fires, many-colored,

And the pools on the plain below gleamed with many reflections:

All things were made precious with the Day’s last ray.

Farewell, my Father, the Shining One!

Farewell, whither thou goest,

Like an aged chieftain adorned with the splendors of many deeds!

Thou dost touch the world with many reflections,

With parting injunctions many——

Thy thought thou hast given us.