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God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore cover

God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 38: THE PRIESTS (Estes Park)
By Hartley Burr Alexander
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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.

THE PRIESTS (Estes Park)

Holy, holy, holy!
The high hills, the Great Mystery!...
The procession of the mountains is eternal,
The great mountains, each in his station abiding....
The crests of the mountains are exalted,
In the glories of the heavens they are transfigured!
Holy, holy, holy!
The high hills, the Great Mystery!...
The mountains lift up their heads——
Into the azure they lift them up;
Their bodies are swathed in silver light,
Their bodies are made luminous with splendors!
Holy, holy, holy!
They are the Priests of God,
They are the Processional of the Great Mystery!...
Their deep-toned voices are a singing hymn,
Their deep-toned voices are chanting the anthem of God;
In the House of Heaven they sing an eternal song!