In the Coals

The sky danced a glimmer of setted sun blue Softly through into the night Like rafters keeping us safe on our path under heaven Trees wove themselves over us Breathing light from coals washed the five gathered faces Flickered in their eyes and over their bodies In the quiet I saw In the south like the waves from beneath the sea One spirit shone with a shimmering breath And another in the west settled on the rafters there With a sighing light barely seen and hardly felt Amid the rafters of the north one other spirit swayed There too an ethereal visitor echoed in the east In the quiet I saw Faces bright, strong and painted with a wash of . . . Contentment, save two, both fallen of crest And still under the watchful eyes of Nokomis high in the skies One rose to smile holding a light before him closely But woe fell across the other for being there within already As if unable to escape for eyes unseeing In the quiet I saw I watched a struggle between three spirit cousins Over and all around they fought where he had fallen So vicious this fight, it cast a shrouding over everything of him For these two beasts snarled and slashed for dominance While the third sat quietly as if waiting or perhaps just watching With great patience for one to fall and it too was evil In the quiet I saw The sky shone softly in the ambient light of stars unglimpsed For Nokomis with her watching eyes held us As only grandmothers do for having loved and loved her child’s children too All through the night she held us as we sailed without a sound Across and over the blue of setted sun somewhere next to here With the warmth of coals burning nowhere save inside In the quiet I saw In the quiet I saw five souls glimmering In the quiet I saw a war cross one red road In the quiet I saw the spirits of four ancestors In the quiet I saw everything, nothing all that I needed In the darkness of the madodoswun it is dark as pitch And still, and yet . . . Before the door whispered to open I saw in the quiet still