by Larry Brody
NOTE FROM LB:
I’ve been getting emails from readers growing impatient because they haven’t yet met the Navajo Dog of this collection of poetry. Chill, gang. I’m setting it – and you – up.
One of the most obnoxious things about writing for, you know, money, is that those who do the paying always tell us who do the writing to “speed things up,” and “Forget the beginning. Start at Act Two.” But no one’s paying me now.
Still, as the work below should show, we’re getting closer. I swear!
Dancing Stars
My friend the wild Indian
(See the feathers! Hear the bells!)
Points up at the night sky. Stars fixed
Like pinholes in black paper stare down,
Immobile, secure.
My friend the wild Indian
(See him dance! Hear him sing!)
Tells me of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,
His long-departed kin.
They are up there, he says, two out of the
Millions of points of pure light. But they are
Different. They live, says
My friend the wild Indian.
(See his frenzy! Hear his ghosts!)
I watch for the life, inhaling the sage and the
Sweetgrass that burn around the circle where
the Fancy Dancers whirled,
Where my friend shook his feathers and
Rang his bells, where he danced, sang,
And lived his frenzy, and became all his
Lost people’s ghosts.
I watch for the life, and I see it, two stars
Breaking away. They move slowly at
First, like the wheels of one of the
Steam locomotives that conquered this
Prairie before the engine has
Gathered enough steam. But then the
Stars whirl, capering and twisting,
Twirling around each other, moving in
Historical patterns, the same ones used by
The dancers earlier in the day.
They are speaking,
My friend the wild Indian
(See his story! Hear his past!)
Says. There is a great message here,
Of motion, of action, without distance although far.
Others join us, all watching, listening,
Children at the storytellers’ knees,
All the wild Indians
(See the feathers! Hear the bells!)
Left on the summer plains.
The story, the dance, the night life of the
Late, great Lakotas continues as hours
Sweep by. The sage and the sweetgrass
Burn down, yet the Dancing Stars’ message
Remains until Dawn. I thank
My friend the wild Indian,
(See the frenzy! Hear the past!)
But the honor is not without pain.
What will I do if I never
See the dance or hear the song
Of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse again?
Larry Brody is the head dood at TVWriter™. Although the book whose cover you see above is for sale on Kindle, he is posting at least one poem a week here at TVWriter™ because, “As the Navajo Dog herself once pointed out to me, ‘Art has to be free. If you create it for money, you compromise your artistic vision by trying to please those who are paying. If you don’t accept money, you can be yourself. Like your art, you too are free.’”
Who is the Navajo Dog? Keep coming back and you’ll see.
