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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3486 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Petroglyphs Above Phoenix Jim Doss Bowman, pierce my heart with your arrow. I am your enemy. I am your friend stalking you now as you stalk this deer through bushes of creosote and sage in evening sunlight that streams towards us from a thousand years ago. Your bowstring draws tight with hunger. Your aim, steady. The obsidian arrow-tip sings a path through air to feed your family long ago turned into stone, into legend. It flies towards me as my fingers trace your etched sandstone figure back into existence. It strikes me in the chest with a thud. The force parts my ribs, thrusts me backwards against the hard, brown soil. I no longer see dirt bike trails, the red smog that encircles these mountains, skyscrapers planted on postage stamps of green, or airplanes rising like metal-skinned beasts into the sky. I hear your voice within my voice counting coup over the still warm body. Monsoon clouds walk the desert floor like spiders on legs of lightning. I grip your knife in my hand and plunge it deep to raise the red fruit of life in praise of your ancestors. I stand as you stand, walk as you walk with the weight of the carcass on your shoulder like a promise of generations to come. |
