wood

By Elaine Maria Upton

They Have Become….
word dreamer in ce*

No one lives here anymore,
and even ‘here’ is a word that hangs on
a memory swimming away with the westward cloud.

No one lives here anymore.
The wedding ritual is over
and the brides are gone.

They have pledged to walk ‘it is true’
everywhere always ’til death.
And now, its disappointing: there is no death.

No one lives here anymore.
There is no life–there is no death.
There are no brides, no you, no me.

The leaves of bushes and trees tremble in wind
and gray clouds sleepwalk across the sky.
Still, most days the sun burns everything.

No one lives here anymore.
The sun burns everything.
This is a desert, indifferent to rain.

The saguaro drank water centuries ago.
That was how it began. They stood
horizontal, in coyote’s eyes, eyes of the dream.

No one lives here anymore. No one
waters or drinks. The weather has become
what it always was: Earth, Wind, and Fire.

No one waters anymore. There is nothing
to purify, and only hunger that burns in the sun.
The corn has become what it always was:

The corn has become the servant/giver of sun.
No one lives here anymore. The brides
have turned all the Earth, have watered and drunk.

They do not live here anymore.
They have eaten the corn. They have become
the Water, the Wood, the Earth, the Wind, the Sun.

No one lives here anymore.
Listen to the buffalo ghost, the empty cornfield.
Listen to the wind in mountains, in leaves of trees.

Sail with the cloud. No one lives here anymore.
The turtle’s voice is as always: less than a whisper.
Listen: it is not death! The graves are light!

Listen to the corn. Listen!
They have eaten the corn. They have become
the Water, the Moon, the Earth, the Wind, the Sun.

5 July 1998