When I came, I stood upon a cliff,
red in the dying light, then fell,
pushed over the edge with laughter.
I sailed through the air
like a cloth doll with moving limbs
and no mouth behind cotton lips.
I fell below enflamed cliffs,
prehistoric plains, blending rocks,
descending arroyos and sudden mesas.
It has taken me years to find again
the magenta of the sunset
and azure of the winter sky.
Now I stand on high desert ground,
with scarred and snow-topped mountains surrounding,
the blood of sacrifice in their names.
Sometimes I wake at night
and sense around me ghosts
with belts of stones and seeded beads.
They come silently,
like the snow this morning,
falling in frozen tears on the burning earth.