God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 6: THE SUN’S FIRST RAY

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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 SUN’S FIRST RAY

This early Morning,

This earliest Dawning,

Behold the Youth,

Streaked with flaming red,

Wearing in his hair a waving feather,

Into the Sky ascending!

Upon me,

Standing alone where the World is—

Upon me comes the shining of his Ray.

I, too, shall be ruddy with new life!

I, too, shall wear in my hair the eagle’s plume!

This day shall be fulfilled with accomplishment;

Valiantly I shall ascend into the Sky!