Best Acoma Poems
Acoma Pueblo
My city of stone
My people I cry for you
I looked into our land
Nothing remains
broken hope of years.
You did toil the soil,
your life was grand.
But what could you do,
the waters ran away from you?
Where did those clouds roll?
Not here, you, my people cried
It hurt your very soul
Brown crops dying so
My children where,
now this place has died,
can I find you?
There's no need to hide
You now suffer more so
Pollution is to blame?
The world is not the same,
Now moving is the game.
Do you ever learn from me?
Not much that I can see
Till the day you die
My people will not survive
For comes another
This one more hurtful,
than the dry winds
He will scour your lands
Far deeper than the wind
Much broader than the shear
He will rule over you
It will be his laws that will kill
The Clovis culture
We gave the world a puzzle
Yet great we were in American time
Our tools were of another level
The archaeologists found the sign
Buried as we fell there,
to famine drought or fire
In a new land not seen before
Our weapons opened another door
They dated us in pre history time
The sphinx in Egypt
Would have smiled if he knew
That I played with bows and arrows
As he watched over you
But what of those great sailors
Saying they'd found new lands
Did they not see us standing there
With our weapons in our hands
They returned talking of our land,
Something for their empires plan
It would have been better for all,
had we welcome them to our shore
Your life inspired me.
Some dream of valuing something other than simplicity
You did the illusional, while others preferred delusional.
Not possible to copy you, not possible to forget you.
Even acoma would set me in a state of mind where our intentions collide,
where our friendship is felt through every touch,
every vibration.
If i were to awake, alone; inside you'd remain.
My heart full of confidence, my mind full of music.
Full of motionless realms brought on by peacefulness and pain.
Numbing to the soul.
Yet our bodies give up on us before we are ready
Yet our souls are anxious for a body of spreading seas
A body of worlds, and hesitant for a body of spiraling emptiness.
For we believe what hides our fears.
Until we retaliate, until we fight back,
at last we have experienced loyalty.
Life, full of unknown space.
Filled with subjects we cannot explain.
Complications override the essence of what should be risen,
and what shall one day fall.
Safe landings, unprepared for what's unknown.
Saving the past, retracing a circle,
leaving your time darker than before.
What can't be done, could begin a growth.
All we want is what is next, all we beg for is what we have.
Inside, we stand alone
surviving only from our hearts,
because of our mind
Turtle heard that Salt Woman was on the road again, and he was
wanting a taste of her. Some miles from Cochiti, he stopped
for directions at a Speedway gas station.
The dwarf who ran the garage could not speak, but Turtle
using the language of Sandhill cranes put a spell on him,
making him dance directions. The dwarf’s jerky movements
became more fluid as Turtle urged him to relate more of the
Salt Woman.
In these parts, Salt Woman had a rep. She traveled
with a wooden puppet that she called her grandson.
When she came to a pueblo she would ask for food for
the boy. Some villages offered her food from the communal
storehouse, and she would bless their store with her tears,
while her grandson grew green leaves on the top of his wooden
head, but in some pueblos the mayor would refuse to offer
anything. Salt women would then turn the children of the village
into chaparral jays.
Turtle figured that the garage dwarf was just a fool, but he knew
that a salty woman was worth finding, and so he drove on following
her trail. Sure enough he found her in a bar in the Acoma
settlement known as Sky City.
Her grandson was with her. Turtle took a good look at Salt Woman.
She was not young, her face was lined, but her hips were as round
as fat babies, her belly dimpled, rosy, and delectable. The wooden
child’s eyes opened wide as he watched Turtle walk up to the bar.
Turtle was looking fine in his rhinestone studded jeans, his tan ruby
fringed shirt and his white, eagle-feathered Stetson.
Ordering tequila, he turned to the woman.
"Will you give me one of your tears, mother"? He asked.
"I have a thirst that can only be cured by a greater thirst".
Salt Woman looked at Turtle:
"And what will you give me in return"?
"I will share my salt with you," turtle replied honestly.
"The same as any man then," she said with a curling lip.
"Yes mother, but my salt will make you younger,' turtle lied.
Turtle will promise anything for sex, in this he is no better
than most men.
Salt Woman laughed out loud, yet a teardrop of sadness fell into
Turtle’s tequila. In a flash Turtle drank it down, grabbed hold of
the boy transforming him to a crane, then he took Salt Woman
upstairs where they tasted their thirst – again and again.