POEM OF THE DAY
To Bush among the Sequoias
Do not disturb.
Can you walk in innocence
under the big trees
like Vasilesa?
You will never find the way
to Baba Yaga's chicken footed hut. Never.
Do not disturb.
Can you walk like Ishi
without turning a leaf or tumbling
a pebble from the track?
Can you part the air
with your tongue
like the salmon flicks the muscle
of itself
through moving water, praising?
Do your words swim
among the tongues of the ancestors
in the river
of whispered psalms?
Can you sing
as Ishi sang,
knapping arrowheads from broken glass?
As he sang
even when washing the scalpel and forceps
in the surgery
of Dr. Noah
in the land of ghosts?
Do not disturb.
You mouth full of spare parts,
you creak of rust
in the junkyard of souls,
you whiff of formaldehyde,
you sting of alcohol
in the wooden indian's mouth,
you unsun of men,
that would unsing the songs of creation:
What is holy keeps holy.
Your names are not the names.
Dana Pattillo
(PoD 41)
1:47:26 AM 
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