WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore cover

God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 26: SUNSTRUCK
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.

SUNSTRUCK

Now he wears sunflowers in his hair,
And dances all day long toward the Sun, nodding....
They say that he was a brave youth, and sensible,
Until he dreamed about the Sun.
My mind is like a fitful wind among the fallen leaves....
It gathers them ... and lets them drop....
It turns them ... and lets them drop....