Jurupa

A predacious bird circles silently above,
scents of Artemesia travel the Santa Anas.
rattlers kiss the red dirt beneath gray boulders,
savage cries curse the air in the desert night.

Indian silhouettes appear in a gallery of ghosts
out of an old movie of the late hour,
they curdle the dust in the shadow,
and unsettle the restless youth below.

Native children and poor descendants
huddle around the pale smoke
in a last pow-wow of the doomed;
wilderness ceremony of naked wonder.


Having left the elders who forgot them,
blood brothers and mixed blood
freely abandon their own posterity,
in a hopeless betrothal to powdered deities:

Now they wed their souls to ruthless poverty!

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