Here
in your house
amongst the
pretty laced
china cup,
silk scarves
and books lining the shelves,
I take comfort
in you having
slept here,
thought new worlds
here,
breathed fire here,
made your enemies
drink their own blood,
watched the sun rise,
the sound of water
slowly spreading
its fingers in loving
prayer.
Your beautiful
linens, wallpapered
borders hand–drawn,
woven in color and content,
all in one.
I'm not long for
this world,
you said in
a dream
of another time,
space, life, lace,
feathered light and air,
yet there you sat, telling
me it was time.
Then you were gone.
Five hundred miles later,
through old haze,
children crying,
gnarled trunks
and congested airways,
I lay here, looking for you.
A last song of days
looms sweetly
amongst the tangled web
you so carefully spun from
your body,
fingers dancing, spinning,
until time stood still.
I lay here, dreaming your voice,
watching light and air
fall from spinarets and
thousand faceted eyes
of sky blown clouds.
Last night,
frogs sang, calling rain home.
The sky opened up,
dreaming the dark rimmed
edge of night along
a rain basted sky,
clouds seamless,
the only thing missing
was you.
About the Author: Carolyn Dunn is an American Indian writer and academic whose poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her poetry has been collected in Outfoxing Coyote and Hidden Creek Journal; she is the editor of two anthologies: Hohzo — Walking in Beauty (with Paula Gunn Allen) and Through the Eye of the Deer (with Carol Comfort); and she is the author of a children's book, Coyote Speaks (with Ari Berk). Currently, she is a James Irvine Foundation Fellow at the Center for American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, where she is pursuing a doctorate. Dunn is also a member of the all–women Native drum group The Mankillers.
Copyright © 2008 by Carolyn Dunn. The poem may not be reproduced in any form without the author's express written permission.