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"They remember how much rain they would get in the summer, monsoon seasons, after the rain, they would each go out and play, in the waters that were running all around them, not too far from home, they could hear the frogs singing their songs in the night, in the big ravine east of the door, each can hear high water flowing in a fast way. Mornings were most beautiful ones and the scent of the wet earth so refreshing.
I am back on the land with my children again we have left the ghost rider place there is no radio out here inside the hogan. Only in the cars and no television sets or vcr's that is the way it has always been that is the way it should be as we wonder again of the cool night air coming in the hogan door and who will keep us warm besides the cow we just ate. Now I tell something more to Mae Ellen of Yoolgai asdza'a' Asdza'a' na'dleehe' White Shell Woman and her twin sister Changing Woman. A story which started a long while ago continuing from that place where I met Mae Ellen with dust blown boots that rugged Earth wrapped around her. To understand how it is Mae Ellen being here. And wondering how our stories really meet I like to tell this part....
"Remember when the Sun Jo'honaa' e'i went to Changing Woman Asdza'a' na'dleehe' on the summit Ch' o'ol' i'i Giant Spruce Mountain? He gave her a hug and said "Now you will come to the west and live with me." Asdza'a' na'dleehe' Changing Woman thought for a long time and then said to Jo'honaa' e'i the Sun that if she were to come with him she would want a home on shimmering water far from the arguments and anger of Earth Surface People she wanted home with gemstones all around her feet. Well he kept asking her over and over "Why should I provide you with all those things?" and finally this time she answered him quickly and this is what she said to him:
"I will tell you why," she said to him.
"You are male and I am female.
You are of the Sky and I am of the Earth.
You are constant in your brightness but I have to change with the seasons.
You move constantly at the very edge of Sky while I have to stay in one place.
Remember that I willingly let you send your rays into my body remember that I gave birth to your sons dealing with all the pain to bring them into the world remember that I gave twins growth and protection from harm remember that I taught the oldest best to honor his people unselfishly so that he would willingly fight the Alien Monsters.
Remember as different as we are you and I we are one Spirit as different as we are you and I we are of equal worth as unlike as you and I are there must always be connection between the two of us for there can be no harmony in the universe as long as there is no harmony between us. If there is to be such harmony my requests must matter to you my needs are as important to me as yours are to you my desires count as much as yours do. My concern for you is measured by your loyalty to me my response to your needs is to reflect the way you respond to mine there is to be nothing more coming from me to you than there is from you to me. There is to be nothing less or more."
That is what Asdza'a' na'dleehe' Changing Woman said to Jo'honaa' e'i the Sun on the summit of Giant Spruce Mountain Ch' o'ol' i'i , one of the four sacred mountains.
At first Jo'honaa' e'i the Sun said nothing.
Then slowly he drew Asdza'a' na'dleehe' into him and this time she allowed him to do this in this way Jo'honaa' e'i promised Asdza'a' na'dleehe' all that she wished.
In this way she promised to make him a home and live in the Beauty Way."
"Lily. There is this writer from way back. Died in 1930. When he was forty five. He was from England like some of my old ones. But once he spent some time in New Mexico. I don't know if he ever went to Fort Sumner but some Taos that is Tewa Indians helped him once. Fix the roof of his old cabin. Over in San Cristobal. Where he could see the sacred land. The mountains and the sun set so far west he thought he was in California or something. I imagine. I imagine he wrote this while he was in those mountains. He said "Oh what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love....when it was taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun..." I like that. In a sad kind of way. It is something like it could be part of the Shell Woman story. Maybe. If she knew us now. The writer from England D.H. Lawrence was a white man with sensitivity to Earth. Hungry for a memory from his little boy days. I imagine. Talking about how to make a love between people. His words strong long after he is gone.*~*~*~*~*~
Alex is gone I sent him away today getting better at catching on before a drama hits tonight Mae Ellen and me both saw a shooting star the same one at the same time and we take that as a good sign. After that we didn't have one cop following us as we drove into town past San Francisco peaks going to pick up a supporter coming in through the internet we only know him as Warm Springs man will be at the train driving down old Route 66 we like to rock out a little and reminisce about what we thought life would be before we had our babies.
When we get to the station we see a tall guy watching us as we get out of the Jeep he wanders around towards us like he knows us or something. Says, "Hey my brother Warms Springs MAn couldn't make it so I came instead, my name is Burns Alot, Shoulder Burns Alot, how are you women doing today anyway." Shoulder Burns Alot? Mae Ellen and me look at each other and both wonder what kind of name is that we are bugged at this stranger replacement guy. Then he just comes out with "It must be the Irish in me, the sun is rough on me sometimes, that's how I got that name." Like he's reading our minds or something but I can deal with this alright so I just start talking things that have to be done out on the land like witnessing the sheep impoundment photographing the police as they try and harass our Grammas things like that while we are loading up the Jeep I am a little surprised at how this man Burns Alot I am surprised at how he seems to listen to us and looking at us like a wash after the rain and I like his long hair and all and so I just come out and ask him "Where is your brother anyway?"
"Working on a project over on the coast, he couldn't get away" Burns Alot talks alot about how after he leaves us he'll be on his way to help his Warm Springs brother Man make a house of gemstones over near Santa Barbara. Then suddenly he says, "Hey I'm so glad to meet you women in person, like this, really glad after all this time, right?"
Now Mae Ellen is pacing around and takes me aside. "What's he rambling on about. And what's up with this 'after all this time' thing? He wasn't even supposed to meet us here at all. It was only three weeks ago his so called brother sent us those emails. Something with this guy is funny here Lily."
"I know it Mae Ellen I know it let's just check this guy out and see what happens at this point we might as well know who we're dealing with." I try to reassure us both we decide with our coded sister side glances that when we get back to the Land we will build Burns Alot a camp by the wash but we will not take him stew.
That night we give the guy one old Pendleton an army surplus rain tarp and some rope he might believe he has a tent. In his North Face pack we walk him to the wash where David once built a chicken wire reservoir to catch the rains before he went away.
We leave Burns Alot a little jug of water the wash is really seco dry.
Back at the fire eating our fresh paprikaed potatoes. Together. Lily and I we see another falling star. And just then Burns Alot comes over to the fire. Yikes I hadn't even heard him coming over. I thought he was asleep.
"You two are sisters, ennit? and I can't tell which one is which."
Now this guy is really get out there. Dark hair we both have yes but Lily and I couldn't look and dress more differently. Underscored by wilderness. One the meadow the other forest. Seems like he is shapeshifting. And somewhere I am thinking "He's just a little on the scary side" the eery yet familiar concern "is he the same person we picked up at the station. Is he really who he says he is." Hungry. For a scene. I can feel it. How much more of this can any of us read. Swallow. Believe.
Am choking. My eyes ache. My head pounding like Thunders rumble and then a lightning strike. By tomorrow morning thousands of acres will be taken. By the not even summer yet. Wild fire. Everything eventually gets to be reborn. Still. The air is saturated with death. Ash. From the jackets of the baby jack rabbits. A tender futility. Running. Like me. For cover. Being eatten by the flames.
I yell out. But not loud enough to wake the kids. " Burns Alot. You need a little sleep don't you? So you won't be so confused. About who we are and what the hell you came here for?"
I take Lily aside. Burns Alot just kind of stares at us. I ask her so he can hear, "Hey why do we email all around and invite these supporters out here anyway. Just letting them show up without meeting them beforehand???"
Then I face him straight up. Tell him , "Hey Burns Alot we need some woman space here. Just go back to your camp, okay?" Lily tugs at my arm. Says something like "chill out Mae Ellen alright?"
Talking now mumbling as he is thunking and clumsy stumbling around the fire. Towards us.
He stretches out his arms. His hands seem to want to land somewhere I hadn't planned. Lily and I both just glare at this big ole supposed to be Indian guy. Who really could be white or polka-dot. And suddenly I'm onto something. Remind him of where he came from. So he can get to where he needs to be. Which is I imagine NOT with us.
"You got a brother or a house to build over there on the coast aren't you anxious to get over there?"
Deep as fire taken ravine silence. Seems like forever he doesn't go anywhere. Doesn't answer and then "But listen ladies, I tell you this, I really do know how to build them gemstone houses." He laughs like an afternoon monsoon. Walking away is not a concept.
I slip around the fire with a bowl trying to spoon myself into Burns Alot eyes. Then I swallow deeply. A kind of gulp. I think I see there is a shiny knife clenched inside his hand. I push or fall into his shoulder I can't remember which. His hands reach gently catching me. And that silvery thing drops on the ground right at our feet. Now I'm truly madly deeply. Turned around.
Us sisters exchange a glance. Burns Alot just steady as a new born heart beat. Lily and I are quickly on all fours. We fumble around on the midnight ground looking for the knife. Suddenly the winds kick up. The dust and cinders fly from inside the fire circle. Hitting Burns Alot bare shoulder. When did he take his shirt off anyway? This guy looks far away. From being even phased. He just turns his words into our lives. Finally arrived he bends down to us and whispers. "Bona sera ladies, fire and water are one."
Get outta here. I can't believe he said this. "Lily is this guy reading my journals or something. Why'd he just say that?? The back seat of my car was a mess. Like someone was looking through it. I mean it." But "He's only been here a couple hours Mae Ellen Burns Alot is not ransacking anything." "Come on Lily check it out..." I want to tell her about a dream a premonition of this scene. But Lily isn't listening. She believes it's fine. She gets a little loud at me. "Whatever. Don't worry so much Mae Ellen sometimes you ask so many questions so suspicious and sometimes that's why I don't always trust you just shut up. "
"What? Jesus Christ." is all I can make my mouth is red from the death I feel in this.
Some people say it rained that night and the next morning two sister women and two brothers were seen smiling, sleeping inside the Sun.
Still other people say next day Burns Alot left after a fight came on between the sisters.
But as the man who some say left, as a man not always tangled by my boot laces, I can tell you straight, that there was traces of union all around that camp that night. And when them sisters woke up I could see a morning where I had took the ride they pulled onto my berm to offer. Opening the door they couldn't bear to see me walk. Barefooted in the desert heat late at night they said "get in here. I show you real good time." Just like they thought I was Jim Morrison or something.
The upholstery is soft is blue velvet, in an old song. We might have stopped at a hotel, where they turned the air conditioner off, I longed to make the trip into a dream, it seems maybe we were steam and we are ripped stitches from a seam. Of a dress no one has ever worn for me, with crystals that come from Europe we were straw inside a lemonade, the women were honey bee and queen, lampshade on a tiger lillied stem, we are us and them trading places with the gospels of a jesus, we were freezing and keep each other flamed, a paradox, a puppet show in Russia circa 1931, we were Paris and the war, burning memories of an underground, surrounded by ones who watch and know our names.
We are the same, children longing for a secret hideaway. Naming the same mother, time is not our mistress and I was never ever master. Waiting to be told it is morning I do not miss them for I am still inside of them. I will sculpt the come they made me give into a fountain of their story and pray that I can be the boy who lost himself to mama and that I will find myself at night. On any road, a man calling for the mother of my sex, daughter of my hunger and reprieve, woman of the mystery, girl child of our sea, living deep inside the sunken place where everything begins.
Baby I'll die for you.
Peering from the side of any road. I see now. Again. Burns Alot would not mine us women. Like so many others. In a no moon darkness. Like daddies of some corporate energy. Talk softly say "I come for you. Your story. Like this. Yes." No. He's not like this. Burns Alot and these loves. They have been elixir of each the other's sip. The taste the swirl perpetually the drink of it. Addicted to the play. He is a character. Written. Living deep inside of some ridden random woman. Still. A prisoner of his own captivity. Pressed as linden flower into spirits of our ancestry.
"Hey Mae Ellen snap out of it there's something here you gotta see it's like that old dream of water and the California side of brown."
As Mae Ellen and me come up from the dust of what could have been a real rustle in the
campfire there is light on the feet of Burns Alot his boots seem familiar. I wanted her to notice this and instead of a knife we find a silver bracelet with turquoise and white shell deep inside tethered to a little deerskin bag of gemstones Mae Ellen whispering "Just touching it helps me see some things which change the way I dream". She tells me this in the fire light and then she says "but I don't really know what this means."
Things are getting strange like when the wind of a big burn changes the air we breathe together is filled with cinders of the coyote rabbits magpies whose homes our lives are taken by the fire maybe we are like these living on the mountain of an accidental raging burn I can hear Mae Ellen say in her hoping way "maybe that's okay."
The next morning Mae Ellen and me we got up made a great big pot of stew the kids put together some blue corn meal cakes and later that day the wild Wind helped us move and carry this food to places we hadn't imagined this man before we were readying to head to the camp of Burns Alot.
"There is a man. I said 'you aren't well my friend' and he said 'here. Take this glove. Touch the place where the bullet tried to take me.' This is love I tell him. Here. No scars to pull inside. Then I tell him, 'You lied you lied you did not die. You are right here' and I tenderly slide my mouth over his heart. My lips rouged with his blood. I am no longer thirsty. This seems like the necessity and splendor of survival. He is not the wolf who comes inside of me. He is the last man who will know my bleeding place. My garnet space. He will touch as feather on the windy beach a trace of girl inside the woman. A transparency is fused onto the frequency of pain which has come to name. Life. No. I do not want to be his wife. Nothing that trite. Something beyond words in a conqueror's tongue. A woman. His lover mother daughter savior goddess sex and sustenance. I would rather die on a highway driving myself to him that live 100 years in an old adobe courtyarded hacienda in Taos surrounded by mementos. In the end I tell him that he has told me I will tell him of how I am his redemption from the irradiated wound he wears like breast plate from another war is over if you want it."
"Yikes what a dream, ennit." We both laugh a little nervously I find the ladle for the stew and I tell Mae Ellen "Love is love is no blood is shed I mean I am not afraid of blood we are women we are the blood of love after all these are times of great resolve the exile might be in reality a necessary treachery fear and his sister pain must be sent away if any of this is to be kept from being forgotten."
"Yes okay Lily it is very hard to dethrone the King in the name of Goddess we might give up being loved by ones who cannot know the word. And so become the love they fear. Do what must be done. Not because we fear fear but because fear fears love. And we will be models of freedom so others can plan their escape. And maybe sometimes we still fear that someone will mistake our love as fear and in this way we become the fear we fear. We will sometimes slip away from the dream. But then easily return. Because in time we imagine fear will build a loveboat. Take a river ride. To where the love fires burn. I can feel it."
Why are we talking like this we wonder we have never kissed the wellspring of such strange and flowered trips.
"Lily look."
As we get down to the wash with our stew and all Burns Alot seems like he is just getting up we feel like we did with the shooting stars. Burns Alot man is still camped down along the wash but now it is running like a river running but not like scared after all these months of drought we can see that Burns Alot is just putting on some dusty boots. That look like they came all the way across the prairies like Aunties coffee-stained and weathered pinon and juniper end table boots. Which wrap as rugged Earth around his Warm Springs feet. They are like the boots Mae Ellen came here in.
Suddenly everything is different. Burns Alot he feels like man. With many nations in his face. A man who has come to breathe heartbeat of our story. A man who has come because he needs us breathe life into his story. Without either one of us women speaking. We feel safe with feeling strong. Both of us women. Bend down to untangle tie and thread his worn out bootlaces. Like as if he was our little son and tell him "when we ever meet again you will speak to us in your heart and eyes of how desire is your captor kingdom homeland mother sister daughter. And you the brother husband lover son. Teller of a story. That runs. Not like in scared. As in river which would Die protecting all she feels is sacred. Like a Mother altar land and sand on the shores of eyes which dream in white water runs. Forever".
He listens nods smiles and says "Hey you want some coffee, just made" from a fire we had helped him keep alive all day.
Other people say that after that time of blue corn cakes and stew they call it, no one could ever come to Big Mountain again, unless they prayed in the old way, in the sister Gramma way.
To this day one thing is certain like the sheep and warm sand pans for their babies every Spring still no coal mines or greedy anybodies live on this sacred Mountain which tells some of us People we know those companies will never ever have this land when I was ten I knew this."
copyright 2013.
all rights reserved
from Part Five "Warm Springs" of blue, like Night Sky
Emergence
"They remember how much rain they would get in the summer, monsoon seasons, after the rain, they would each go out and play, in the waters that were running all around them, not too far from home, they could hear the frogs singing their songs in the night, in the big ravine east of the door, each can hear high water flowing in a fast way. Mornings were most beautiful ones and the scent of the wet earth so refreshing.
I am back on the land with my children again we have left the ghost rider place there is no radio out here inside the hogan. Only in the cars and no television sets or vcr's that is the way it has always been that is the way it should be as we wonder again of the cool night air coming in the hogan door and who will keep us warm besides the cow we just ate. Now I tell something more to Mae Ellen of Yoolgai asdza'a' Asdza'a' na'dleehe' White Shell Woman and her twin sister Changing Woman. A story which started a long while ago continuing from that place where I met Mae Ellen with dust blown boots that rugged Earth wrapped around her. To understand how it is Mae Ellen being here. And wondering how our stories really meet I like to tell this part....
"Remember when the Sun Jo'honaa' e'i went to Changing Woman Asdza'a' na'dleehe' on the summit Ch' o'ol' i'i Giant Spruce Mountain? He gave her a hug and said "Now you will come to the west and live with me." Asdza'a' na'dleehe' Changing Woman thought for a long time and then said to Jo'honaa' e'i the Sun that if she were to come with him she would want a home on shimmering water far from the arguments and anger of Earth Surface People she wanted home with gemstones all around her feet. Well he kept asking her over and over "Why should I provide you with all those things?" and finally this time she answered him quickly and this is what she said to him:
"I will tell you why," she said to him.
"You are male and I am female.
You are of the Sky and I am of the Earth.
You are constant in your brightness but I have to change with the seasons.
You move constantly at the very edge of Sky while I have to stay in one place.
Remember that I willingly let you send your rays into my body remember that I gave birth to your sons dealing with all the pain to bring them into the world remember that I gave twins growth and protection from harm remember that I taught the oldest best to honor his people unselfishly so that he would willingly fight the Alien Monsters.
Remember as different as we are you and I we are one Spirit as different as we are you and I we are of equal worth as unlike as you and I are there must always be connection between the two of us for there can be no harmony in the universe as long as there is no harmony between us. If there is to be such harmony my requests must matter to you my needs are as important to me as yours are to you my desires count as much as yours do. My concern for you is measured by your loyalty to me my response to your needs is to reflect the way you respond to mine there is to be nothing more coming from me to you than there is from you to me. There is to be nothing less or more."
That is what Asdza'a' na'dleehe' Changing Woman said to Jo'honaa' e'i the Sun on the summit of Giant Spruce Mountain Ch' o'ol' i'i , one of the four sacred mountains.
At first Jo'honaa' e'i the Sun said nothing.
Then slowly he drew Asdza'a' na'dleehe' into him and this time she allowed him to do this in this way Jo'honaa' e'i promised Asdza'a' na'dleehe' all that she wished.
In this way she promised to make him a home and live in the Beauty Way."
"Lily. There is this writer from way back. Died in 1930. When he was forty five. He was from England like some of my old ones. But once he spent some time in New Mexico. I don't know if he ever went to Fort Sumner but some Taos that is Tewa Indians helped him once. Fix the roof of his old cabin. Over in San Cristobal. Where he could see the sacred land. The mountains and the sun set so far west he thought he was in California or something. I imagine. I imagine he wrote this while he was in those mountains. He said "Oh what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love....when it was taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun..." I like that. In a sad kind of way. It is something like it could be part of the Shell Woman story. Maybe. If she knew us now. The writer from England D.H. Lawrence was a white man with sensitivity to Earth. Hungry for a memory from his little boy days. I imagine. Talking about how to make a love between people. His words strong long after he is gone.*~*~*~*~*~
Alex is gone I sent him away today getting better at catching on before a drama hits tonight Mae Ellen and me both saw a shooting star the same one at the same time and we take that as a good sign. After that we didn't have one cop following us as we drove into town past San Francisco peaks going to pick up a supporter coming in through the internet we only know him as Warm Springs man will be at the train driving down old Route 66 we like to rock out a little and reminisce about what we thought life would be before we had our babies.
When we get to the station we see a tall guy watching us as we get out of the Jeep he wanders around towards us like he knows us or something. Says, "Hey my brother Warms Springs MAn couldn't make it so I came instead, my name is Burns Alot, Shoulder Burns Alot, how are you women doing today anyway." Shoulder Burns Alot? Mae Ellen and me look at each other and both wonder what kind of name is that we are bugged at this stranger replacement guy. Then he just comes out with "It must be the Irish in me, the sun is rough on me sometimes, that's how I got that name." Like he's reading our minds or something but I can deal with this alright so I just start talking things that have to be done out on the land like witnessing the sheep impoundment photographing the police as they try and harass our Grammas things like that while we are loading up the Jeep I am a little surprised at how this man Burns Alot I am surprised at how he seems to listen to us and looking at us like a wash after the rain and I like his long hair and all and so I just come out and ask him "Where is your brother anyway?"
"Working on a project over on the coast, he couldn't get away" Burns Alot talks alot about how after he leaves us he'll be on his way to help his Warm Springs brother Man make a house of gemstones over near Santa Barbara. Then suddenly he says, "Hey I'm so glad to meet you women in person, like this, really glad after all this time, right?"
Now Mae Ellen is pacing around and takes me aside. "What's he rambling on about. And what's up with this 'after all this time' thing? He wasn't even supposed to meet us here at all. It was only three weeks ago his so called brother sent us those emails. Something with this guy is funny here Lily."
"I know it Mae Ellen I know it let's just check this guy out and see what happens at this point we might as well know who we're dealing with." I try to reassure us both we decide with our coded sister side glances that when we get back to the Land we will build Burns Alot a camp by the wash but we will not take him stew.
That night we give the guy one old Pendleton an army surplus rain tarp and some rope he might believe he has a tent. In his North Face pack we walk him to the wash where David once built a chicken wire reservoir to catch the rains before he went away.
We leave Burns Alot a little jug of water the wash is really seco dry.
*~*~*~*~*~
Back at the fire eating our fresh paprikaed potatoes. Together. Lily and I we see another falling star. And just then Burns Alot comes over to the fire. Yikes I hadn't even heard him coming over. I thought he was asleep.
"You two are sisters, ennit? and I can't tell which one is which."
Now this guy is really get out there. Dark hair we both have yes but Lily and I couldn't look and dress more differently. Underscored by wilderness. One the meadow the other forest. Seems like he is shapeshifting. And somewhere I am thinking "He's just a little on the scary side" the eery yet familiar concern "is he the same person we picked up at the station. Is he really who he says he is." Hungry. For a scene. I can feel it. How much more of this can any of us read. Swallow. Believe.
Am choking. My eyes ache. My head pounding like Thunders rumble and then a lightning strike. By tomorrow morning thousands of acres will be taken. By the not even summer yet. Wild fire. Everything eventually gets to be reborn. Still. The air is saturated with death. Ash. From the jackets of the baby jack rabbits. A tender futility. Running. Like me. For cover. Being eatten by the flames.
I yell out. But not loud enough to wake the kids. " Burns Alot. You need a little sleep don't you? So you won't be so confused. About who we are and what the hell you came here for?"
I take Lily aside. Burns Alot just kind of stares at us. I ask her so he can hear, "Hey why do we email all around and invite these supporters out here anyway. Just letting them show up without meeting them beforehand???"
Then I face him straight up. Tell him , "Hey Burns Alot we need some woman space here. Just go back to your camp, okay?" Lily tugs at my arm. Says something like "chill out Mae Ellen alright?"
Talking now mumbling as he is thunking and clumsy stumbling around the fire. Towards us.
He stretches out his arms. His hands seem to want to land somewhere I hadn't planned. Lily and I both just glare at this big ole supposed to be Indian guy. Who really could be white or polka-dot. And suddenly I'm onto something. Remind him of where he came from. So he can get to where he needs to be. Which is I imagine NOT with us.
"You got a brother or a house to build over there on the coast aren't you anxious to get over there?"
Deep as fire taken ravine silence. Seems like forever he doesn't go anywhere. Doesn't answer and then "But listen ladies, I tell you this, I really do know how to build them gemstone houses." He laughs like an afternoon monsoon. Walking away is not a concept.
I slip around the fire with a bowl trying to spoon myself into Burns Alot eyes. Then I swallow deeply. A kind of gulp. I think I see there is a shiny knife clenched inside his hand. I push or fall into his shoulder I can't remember which. His hands reach gently catching me. And that silvery thing drops on the ground right at our feet. Now I'm truly madly deeply. Turned around.
Us sisters exchange a glance. Burns Alot just steady as a new born heart beat. Lily and I are quickly on all fours. We fumble around on the midnight ground looking for the knife. Suddenly the winds kick up. The dust and cinders fly from inside the fire circle. Hitting Burns Alot bare shoulder. When did he take his shirt off anyway? This guy looks far away. From being even phased. He just turns his words into our lives. Finally arrived he bends down to us and whispers. "Bona sera ladies, fire and water are one."
Get outta here. I can't believe he said this. "Lily is this guy reading my journals or something. Why'd he just say that?? The back seat of my car was a mess. Like someone was looking through it. I mean it." But "He's only been here a couple hours Mae Ellen Burns Alot is not ransacking anything." "Come on Lily check it out..." I want to tell her about a dream a premonition of this scene. But Lily isn't listening. She believes it's fine. She gets a little loud at me. "Whatever. Don't worry so much Mae Ellen sometimes you ask so many questions so suspicious and sometimes that's why I don't always trust you just shut up. "
"What? Jesus Christ." is all I can make my mouth is red from the death I feel in this.
*~*~*~*~*~
Some people say that one of the women walked with this guy back to the wash that night carrying saddlebags of blue corn breads and a mesa full of stew.Some people say it rained that night and the next morning two sister women and two brothers were seen smiling, sleeping inside the Sun.
Still other people say next day Burns Alot left after a fight came on between the sisters.
But as the man who some say left, as a man not always tangled by my boot laces, I can tell you straight, that there was traces of union all around that camp that night. And when them sisters woke up I could see a morning where I had took the ride they pulled onto my berm to offer. Opening the door they couldn't bear to see me walk. Barefooted in the desert heat late at night they said "get in here. I show you real good time." Just like they thought I was Jim Morrison or something.
The upholstery is soft is blue velvet, in an old song. We might have stopped at a hotel, where they turned the air conditioner off, I longed to make the trip into a dream, it seems maybe we were steam and we are ripped stitches from a seam. Of a dress no one has ever worn for me, with crystals that come from Europe we were straw inside a lemonade, the women were honey bee and queen, lampshade on a tiger lillied stem, we are us and them trading places with the gospels of a jesus, we were freezing and keep each other flamed, a paradox, a puppet show in Russia circa 1931, we were Paris and the war, burning memories of an underground, surrounded by ones who watch and know our names.
We are the same, children longing for a secret hideaway. Naming the same mother, time is not our mistress and I was never ever master. Waiting to be told it is morning I do not miss them for I am still inside of them. I will sculpt the come they made me give into a fountain of their story and pray that I can be the boy who lost himself to mama and that I will find myself at night. On any road, a man calling for the mother of my sex, daughter of my hunger and reprieve, woman of the mystery, girl child of our sea, living deep inside the sunken place where everything begins.
*~*~*~*~*~
Lily and I are family by now. We hardly ever bad talk with each other. "I just mean I guess sometimes you gotta go with things Mae Ellen and stop trying to figure so much out like that yes okay of course I trust you yes." Shifting winds. The rare Easterlies are blowing ashen air. The wildfire is changing his direction. We both decide obviously the guy is sent to mess with us. Or just a little nuts. We imagine getting rid of him. There is a bottle of wine from Italy. On the bedstand in a cheap hotel. On the 70's side of Sangre de Christos. Burns Alot is higher than the altitude. Searching for communion. Maybe a correspondence of fire he has heard about. The body of a saviour. A priestess legend consuming him. In ritual. Or maybe it's just me. I see these things in perpetual devotion. Dionysus replacing Eros. A shadow dance of ceremony. Beside a shrine to memory. Burns Alot and woman. Renegade he is. Saved and saving many times. He is opening the wine he is the sweet refresh. Wafers of flesh decorate his mind. Still. I feel -think he is revolution and lost soldier. Stripped naked of a uniform. Pulling all the scars inside. Boy of wounded motions shouldering the dark. Still. Drawn by desert of a longing. Shackled to desert of some thirst. Woman wakes into morning removes his shirt and pours her breath into his bed. It was never empty. She wept and bled for him. He might do the same for her. Celebrate communication of this blood fire. I hear an echo in the canyon.Baby I'll die for you.
Peering from the side of any road. I see now. Again. Burns Alot would not mine us women. Like so many others. In a no moon darkness. Like daddies of some corporate energy. Talk softly say "I come for you. Your story. Like this. Yes." No. He's not like this. Burns Alot and these loves. They have been elixir of each the other's sip. The taste the swirl perpetually the drink of it. Addicted to the play. He is a character. Written. Living deep inside of some ridden random woman. Still. A prisoner of his own captivity. Pressed as linden flower into spirits of our ancestry.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Mae Ellen is slipping into some other kind of reality talking about these gods and things from her old country she calls it. I gotta bring her back to me"Hey Mae Ellen snap out of it there's something here you gotta see it's like that old dream of water and the California side of brown."
As Mae Ellen and me come up from the dust of what could have been a real rustle in the
campfire there is light on the feet of Burns Alot his boots seem familiar. I wanted her to notice this and instead of a knife we find a silver bracelet with turquoise and white shell deep inside tethered to a little deerskin bag of gemstones Mae Ellen whispering "Just touching it helps me see some things which change the way I dream". She tells me this in the fire light and then she says "but I don't really know what this means."
Things are getting strange like when the wind of a big burn changes the air we breathe together is filled with cinders of the coyote rabbits magpies whose homes our lives are taken by the fire maybe we are like these living on the mountain of an accidental raging burn I can hear Mae Ellen say in her hoping way "maybe that's okay."
The next morning Mae Ellen and me we got up made a great big pot of stew the kids put together some blue corn meal cakes and later that day the wild Wind helped us move and carry this food to places we hadn't imagined this man before we were readying to head to the camp of Burns Alot.
*~*~*~*~*~
"No matter what happens out here we always survive. In this way People of the Earth are alive forever" that's what Mae Ellen likes to say to me while I smile and offer her a cup of coffee and then she says " I must tell you of my dream last night.""There is a man. I said 'you aren't well my friend' and he said 'here. Take this glove. Touch the place where the bullet tried to take me.' This is love I tell him. Here. No scars to pull inside. Then I tell him, 'You lied you lied you did not die. You are right here' and I tenderly slide my mouth over his heart. My lips rouged with his blood. I am no longer thirsty. This seems like the necessity and splendor of survival. He is not the wolf who comes inside of me. He is the last man who will know my bleeding place. My garnet space. He will touch as feather on the windy beach a trace of girl inside the woman. A transparency is fused onto the frequency of pain which has come to name. Life. No. I do not want to be his wife. Nothing that trite. Something beyond words in a conqueror's tongue. A woman. His lover mother daughter savior goddess sex and sustenance. I would rather die on a highway driving myself to him that live 100 years in an old adobe courtyarded hacienda in Taos surrounded by mementos. In the end I tell him that he has told me I will tell him of how I am his redemption from the irradiated wound he wears like breast plate from another war is over if you want it."
"Yikes what a dream, ennit." We both laugh a little nervously I find the ladle for the stew and I tell Mae Ellen "Love is love is no blood is shed I mean I am not afraid of blood we are women we are the blood of love after all these are times of great resolve the exile might be in reality a necessary treachery fear and his sister pain must be sent away if any of this is to be kept from being forgotten."
"Yes okay Lily it is very hard to dethrone the King in the name of Goddess we might give up being loved by ones who cannot know the word. And so become the love they fear. Do what must be done. Not because we fear fear but because fear fears love. And we will be models of freedom so others can plan their escape. And maybe sometimes we still fear that someone will mistake our love as fear and in this way we become the fear we fear. We will sometimes slip away from the dream. But then easily return. Because in time we imagine fear will build a loveboat. Take a river ride. To where the love fires burn. I can feel it."
Why are we talking like this we wonder we have never kissed the wellspring of such strange and flowered trips.
"Lily look."
As we get down to the wash with our stew and all Burns Alot seems like he is just getting up we feel like we did with the shooting stars. Burns Alot man is still camped down along the wash but now it is running like a river running but not like scared after all these months of drought we can see that Burns Alot is just putting on some dusty boots. That look like they came all the way across the prairies like Aunties coffee-stained and weathered pinon and juniper end table boots. Which wrap as rugged Earth around his Warm Springs feet. They are like the boots Mae Ellen came here in.
Suddenly everything is different. Burns Alot he feels like man. With many nations in his face. A man who has come to breathe heartbeat of our story. A man who has come because he needs us breathe life into his story. Without either one of us women speaking. We feel safe with feeling strong. Both of us women. Bend down to untangle tie and thread his worn out bootlaces. Like as if he was our little son and tell him "when we ever meet again you will speak to us in your heart and eyes of how desire is your captor kingdom homeland mother sister daughter. And you the brother husband lover son. Teller of a story. That runs. Not like in scared. As in river which would Die protecting all she feels is sacred. Like a Mother altar land and sand on the shores of eyes which dream in white water runs. Forever".
He listens nods smiles and says "Hey you want some coffee, just made" from a fire we had helped him keep alive all day.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Some people say it rained that night of feast. And the next morning two sisters and a man woke. With smiling eyes. Quenching a linden flower thirst.Other people say that after that time of blue corn cakes and stew they call it, no one could ever come to Big Mountain again, unless they prayed in the old way, in the sister Gramma way.
To this day one thing is certain like the sheep and warm sand pans for their babies every Spring still no coal mines or greedy anybodies live on this sacred Mountain which tells some of us People we know those companies will never ever have this land when I was ten I knew this."
THE END
copyright 2013.
all rights reserved
antoinette nora claypoole
all people are one
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