Climb the highest mountain, punch the face of god
Longhouse
I've sat beside those blazing red fires.
I've reveled in the glow of the teller of stories.
The smoke filters out into the nighttime
While my imagination creates images of salish figures.
The Indian smells are present in the ambience,
The white sage, yellowing sweetgrass, the cedar.
But I've never been there alone, encircled in cedar,
Suddenly aware of my soul, which burns in my body like fire.
There are brilliant stars in the deep sky, the ambience
Reveals, with a shudder, the truth of family stories.
The lies that are brought out by the sage, they turn into figures,
The mythical raven who laughs at us in the nighttime.
It is in this wrinkled nighttime
That the trees breathe out the scent of cedar
Into the air. Together, we see each other as salish figures,
Burning off our ropes into the fires
And listening, to the reality of the stories
That become thicker than the sweetgrass ambience.
The blazes snap and pop, wood chars, the ambience
Deepens into silence. The nighttime
Has fallen from the sky into our laps, and stories
Plague our memory. the memory of stripping cedar,
The smell of it when burned by fire,
The feel of it when twisted into small rose figures.
Our eyes dry out from smoke, and it figures.
I cannot see the others through the assuage ambience.
I'm cold, I'm hot, I'm everything, and nothing by the fires,
The fire pits, three of them, trinity, glows in the nighttime.
The only glow. I see silhouettes of trees, cedars,
Towering everywhere. Towering over the teller of stories.
I've woven my own detailed stories,
Yet lacked the salish knowledge and figures
To make it come alive. I can feel it, the cedar,
The white sage, the yellowing sweetgrass, entangle in the ambience
Of its smoke. The tresses of smoke in the nighttime.
Created by the ancient tellings, coming to life by the fires.
I've heard all the stories. They nest in our minds, create an ambience
To stay in forever, those salish figures. They laugh while we sleep in the nighttime.
We'll leave them some cedar, smoke some salmon, be a nation of people by the fires.
May 12, 2005
Suge
I've reveled in the glow of the teller of stories.
The smoke filters out into the nighttime
While my imagination creates images of salish figures.
The Indian smells are present in the ambience,
The white sage, yellowing sweetgrass, the cedar.
But I've never been there alone, encircled in cedar,
Suddenly aware of my soul, which burns in my body like fire.
There are brilliant stars in the deep sky, the ambience
Reveals, with a shudder, the truth of family stories.
The lies that are brought out by the sage, they turn into figures,
The mythical raven who laughs at us in the nighttime.
It is in this wrinkled nighttime
That the trees breathe out the scent of cedar
Into the air. Together, we see each other as salish figures,
Burning off our ropes into the fires
And listening, to the reality of the stories
That become thicker than the sweetgrass ambience.
The blazes snap and pop, wood chars, the ambience
Deepens into silence. The nighttime
Has fallen from the sky into our laps, and stories
Plague our memory. the memory of stripping cedar,
The smell of it when burned by fire,
The feel of it when twisted into small rose figures.
Our eyes dry out from smoke, and it figures.
I cannot see the others through the assuage ambience.
I'm cold, I'm hot, I'm everything, and nothing by the fires,
The fire pits, three of them, trinity, glows in the nighttime.
The only glow. I see silhouettes of trees, cedars,
Towering everywhere. Towering over the teller of stories.
I've woven my own detailed stories,
Yet lacked the salish knowledge and figures
To make it come alive. I can feel it, the cedar,
The white sage, the yellowing sweetgrass, entangle in the ambience
Of its smoke. The tresses of smoke in the nighttime.
Created by the ancient tellings, coming to life by the fires.
I've heard all the stories. They nest in our minds, create an ambience
To stay in forever, those salish figures. They laugh while we sleep in the nighttime.
We'll leave them some cedar, smoke some salmon, be a nation of people by the fires.
May 12, 2005
Suge
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Longhouse
Longhouse
