Kachina

Lining canyon walls are
spirits of ancestors
and the cosmos of their Kachinas.
 
In the darkness of a new moon
you let me drive your truck
as you call out the way,
 
RayBans perch on your cropped hair
with speckled hawk feathers
spinning in the wind.
 
Over bridges that span gullies,
riverbeds long parched by
a drought never-ending since the
 
memories of our great-grandfathers
who stomped their feet and
shed their skin when bone whistles blew.
 
The pickup bounds headlong and you
let out a war whoop while, spiraling
in the moonless sky, bats fly unseen.
 
Headlights over the wash pierce the
swirling dust from the bridge that
straddles forgotten sacred ground.  
 
 
A generation with no memory.