Poetry: Ancient Singer; Fall of Autumn; Native's Dances

All featured on the Teen Ink website.

Native's Dances

Backyard stretches out before me
And a low branch purrs to me, a siren
Offering a seat. I jump to it
And nearly tumble down from her hand.
The squirrels squawk angrily at me above
For taking their favorite perch.
In my ears, my iPod headphones
Pump out the beats of Arvel Bird,
His music speaking with a
Language of symbols I could read,
If I so desired. But
Right now, I sit, torn. I could
Jump to the lush ground to stomp my feet,
To throw my arms and swing my body
In a Native American dance of worship –
Or I could sit here, listening to him speak
With his drums and keyboard, observing
The creatures whose stories he tells
Pass me by on their way to their own
Homes.

*

Ancient Singer

For one night we decorated a stage. We were prudent in our arrangements. An archway carved from oak wood unburied from dumpsters was embellished with text last night. And lights were hooked to its uneven surface, becoming the lighted path in the garden that passing musicians can stare at and wander in for hours in the course of two minutes, as they remember all that has been sweet in one week.

We sat to rest. In our peripheral vision, we saw the chandeliers with fake candles that told as many lies as they told facts, as many myths as true tales passed down. But their words were elusive, and were lost in their false beauty, lacking solid elements to fuel any true flames high in the stage’s dark embrace.

The singer stepped out before our weary legs. She was ancient, and young. And instead of ignoring us, she knelt in an old-fashioned curtsey, a look of gratitude on her face and in her aging eyes. Eyes that contained an ocean of wonder that not even their owner could conquer.

She offered her hand as she spoke her name. I took it. I felt a rush of power in her body and I understood then how this frail creature could bring so many under her hypnotic spell. She was not from the world of the mundane.

In her world, trees walk and speak prophecies. Her world rises above our earth, and the trickling rain is warm and kind, like midsummer sun. The inane is the sensible and commonplace. Enigma’s are left in peace, and allowed to keep their comforting touch on our lives, to make us adventurous.

The ancient lady released my hand and moved to the others. I stood, almost empty, longing for an adventure that would almost bring answers, but that would never bring its last chapter to a close. I turned to our glowing archway, and walked through it tentatively, towards the ancient singer’s world.

*

Fall of Autumn

The dirt is pale beneath my callused feet
and the air stale within my tightening chest
as the trees drop their darkening leaves
upon my stuffy, unbalanced head.

Crunch...swish.
Crunch...swish.

The Crow screeches his familiar, menacing cackle
and yanks at his rusting shackles – metal slices
holding the world below within his grasp,
keeping his rubber ball within reach of black talons.

Crunch...swish.
Crunch...swish.

Night skies walk the ‘rubber ball’ as a black fox
stalking the noisy children as if they were
scurrying mice, squeaking, running for home
beneath a fall moon fleshed out by terror attacks.

Crunch...

One a year, there is a violent ‘Caw’, followed
by the fading of shuffling padded paws -
the biting, bitter cold wind begins his approach,
wailing forcefully in his generous warning.

Crow and Night disappear; he relinquishes
the shackles to their sister, the Blue Princess.
She then waves a barren stick; like magic attracts
like, dead winter branches create dead winter branches.