THE BOOK OF EVE
I tell you temptation was cool
As a string of pearls in my hands.
It wasn't the fruit,
color of flesh and mouths,
It was the idea of touch
that caused me to reach out.
What did I, fresh
From the realm of mythology,
my feet still half-sunk in clay,
know of desire?
Only that the word seed
stemmed from it,
that all of nature
seemed to be ripe with it.
It's skin hunger
Which forces its own vision.
I learned that we are half
of something always,
craving the mystery
of that other side.
I learned that one must dance
to its music.I tell you temptation was tender,
patiently asking for direction
in the eden wilderness.
With the clear God-pattern
drawn on our palm
like crib notes
there was no escaping it.
It wasn't the new world and everything in it,
the winged leaves and pink sky,
the animals in their curious skin
nor the serpent with its slow groove
of persuasion moving in the branches.
It wasn't the new world
that called to me-
it was desire,
that young disease
that I answered to.II.
The first touch was sharp,
disturbing the foreign inside me.
It stained like blood on cotton.
The snowy doves
trying to deliver peace
had warned me of this,
but of the burning they were mute,
and the fire in the belly that came
was no dull surprise.
Remember that I was the one
Pushed to the front
To navigate in the dark
Initiation was to grasp
something whole and sweet,
to taste but not be filled.
And because of me
these palpitations
were given a name.III.
Where the curse began,
in the prickly womb-nest,
the uncleanliness pinned
to each daughter-
this was where the myth hatched,
the belief that She
could lead you into
dirty waters
blindfolded,
stain your hands red,
that She was supernatural
and could turn a man
to seawater with her hands,
let him scatter
if she chose him to.
She could deafen you with silence.
She could devour your whole existence
with temptation.She could make you go mad
with wanting
to eat out of her hand.
EAGLE DREAMING
There you are, kachina woman
within the frame of the lens,
with your sunset colored poncho,
a white angel just above
your left shoulder.
Your long hair is silver,
dark weathered skin,
hands clenching the oak walking stick.
You first by the law of affinity
to grace this land.
By law of symmetry
your philosophy was devoured
and your wildlife made lame
by the white man's hand.
Your cornfields of peace
spit black kernels
under a gunpowder sky.Winter wheat, old woman,
harvested in your sleep.When I was a child
my father brought me three little
brown skinned dolls from Arizona.
A novelty,
moulded in plastic
with jet nylon hair.
So exotic these dolls
to an 8 year old girl.
I didn't know what Indians were
but that all the girls had obsidian hair
and were beautiful.
I did not know the declension
of your land, the anima slaughter,
the gifted blankets of disease,
your precious food and sacred water.Winter wheat, small one,
gathered in your dreams.
You, eagle-dreaming
and omen laden
saw the strange pale faces waiting.
Saw the buffalo
sold out as souvenirs,
smelled the dead flesh of ignorance,
Sangre de Cristo
splashed on the ochre sun.Winter wheat, dear one,
eaten in your sleep.Our history books
devoted a chapter to your legend,
a summary of your existence
eulogized in a few neat paragraphs.
They had already made ghosts of you,
walking dead in your narrow spaces.
The mythology of your shadowed faces,
Sister Moon.Your dirty white angel had come,
made you witness
to a wide reckoning
And bloated America
filling up like liquid
in a pair of lungs.
FIRE-WALKERS
Does it help for the body
to be cruciform on the table
while receiving radiation?Having already spoken long
To 7 morning angels
That shook me
From sleep at 5 am.
We came to tell you
Every moment from here on
Is gilded,
That missing piece of the puzzle
Which gives the Madonna an eye.
And, of course,
They are perfectly right.
There is a trust in the spiritual
I have never known,
An invisible net
Contoured to my flesh.
The trust says Come-
You will be
Like the fire-walkers
Whose faith carries them clean
Across yards
Of white hot pain.
STRUCTURE
Where we walk on New Year's Day
There are honey bees in the snow
Heavy as minor chords,
Sympatico in the frozen white.
The spangled field displays
Premature flight.
God promises nothing
But to always be
Wiser than you.
INFECTED
For Lisa
There is a wild bird
nesting in my ribs,
whistling through
little air raid warnings
always on time.
New rules.
Who is the god
stirred this disease
into existence?
Is there a hidden pyramid
of reason?
The sun rises,
subtle enemy on tenterhooks.
The night like a rash
where my dreams
are more bone than flesh.
I sleep and develop appreciation,
clarity of predestination
that we are born with.
There is nothing
I could have done
to pull the arrow
from its target.
But now I can tell you
almost how it feels
to be a vine
trying to cling
to something solid.