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| Shiprock in December |
Approaching Shiprock ,
James Hart
At first sight, you will believe you see time’s
dark city of the dead over silent underworld,
heaven’s black gateway to pale evening stars,
titanic dome housing spirits’ guides, or gods,
a haunted palace guarding old enchantments
of emptiness you find along the road you take.
Closer, you believe you see cathedral spires,
towering rock of faith nested in naked grass,
a nave awaiting your soul as infinities fill
these horizons hovering under twilit wings.
Coming from a land of trees and rolling hills,
you can’t contain the desert’s western swells,
eyes straining to hold distance without trees,
a boat of souls bound for lost Anasazi shores.
Somewhere nearer, eyes clear wavering hazes,
you see volcanic remnants of its ample core
soaring where ancient mountain fell away,
sediment in your imagination’s hungry sea.
Finally, you discern this is a frigate’s mass
afloat on billowing stone’s petrified waves,
sailing the vast desert sea of grass and time
solidified as dull wind’s thievery founders,
fails to rend black magma’s mast, ashen sails.
Aligning three spires’ fingers to Orion’s belt,
you dream this rock embarks into lithic night,
and wonder if those Anasazi who disappeared
heard ghosts lost in time’s sable winter seas
opened silent portals to their guardian stars.
(Poem from an unpublished manuscript
entitled Somewhere West of Never)
Photo Source: www.trekearth.com
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