Dead Winter

There walks warriors in that graveyard, holy men and medicine women of ages. at night you can see their spirits dance, setting fire to history's pages. In that far corner up by the stream, far from the eyes of publicity, she plays on the shore, beautiful Raylene, catching poly-wogs, in silent lucidity. In silent lucidity. Brittle now, those fine bones, deep beneath the snowdrifts of winter, beneath the memories of her lifeless body, down rivers and streams of remember. A broken woman kneels in prayer, a heavy weight and burdened mind, somewhere deep in what could have been, what was for a moment in time. The grayness of her frail body lingers in a dead winter of the unborn, page 49 in a family album and a baptismal gown never worn. Together they dance, the woman and the child, their soft footfalls pounding out the sorrows of many days at a worn out headstone, many dances to come, many tomorrows. Together they dance The Woman's Dance, their hearts as one, the woman and the child.