Warrior

I wake long before light slides
into the sandboxes of my eyes.  
 
There is always more to night
than sleeping. I lie still, listening  
to the furnace breathing, something  
deeply distant clearing its throat  
in the driest corner of darkness.  
 
Jets on the concourse, engines
rumbling with discord circling  
the REM of sleep. Kachina glass  
rattling, a stampede of buffalo  
through the marrowed tunnel
of my bones, their hooves caked  
with corpuscles of memory;
the smell of splintered wood
pasture manure and smoldering  
leaves resisting a slow burn.  
  
When I was a little girl I knew  
there was more than sleep  
to believe in a new minute.
More than dreams to create  
a happiness monument.  
 
More than waiting on a burning  
ball of light to bleach the dark
curtains into long shadows
across morning concrete  
to be able to see the mountain
and begin all over again.  
  
As I aged I’d lie embracing  
the nocturnal until I became a Warrior.

Until I rose from the woven blanket
of safety and carved the skeletal  
blade. Until I scalped the hair  
from fear and smeared its blood  
across my face. Until I became  
a war party standing against  
a concealed army of disbelief.  

Until I danced around a spitting  
fire with singed hair and blistered  
feet defying the inky separation  
of waiting. Until my chant cracked  
the curtain rod of resolve above  
the treeline.

Until that eastern star, weary from failed
attempts at sleep rose across the water

before Me.  
~