Stone
Farther shores I know than this,
visions vivid like the morrow;
holy heaven, everlightened,
sends its mercy, masters sorrow.
I wish anew on falling stars;
those leaping lights in dance display
a dream of powers pouring down
like righteous ruin of the day.
Rue no more the pastward lesson,
harbor here in love alone;
that castle-keep and quiet eyrie
is blessed upon a saving stone.
The Lady of the Garden
This garden bears the vestiges
of Our Lady of the Rains,
baptized from conception,
gentle Mary without a stain,
never without redeeming grace
from God made flesh and slain.
All are nourished by the praying tears
she beneath the cross did cry:
you are a flower in this garden
and beneath the trees grow I;
yea, the roses grow in splendor here
where their blooms will never die.
Ghost Dance
On Milky Way in velvet skies
now walk the souls that lived and died;
it bears them to the earth below,
to starlit mountains crowned with snow.
Christ has sent the winds of peace!
He bade the war and violence cease;
he brings to morning living rain
and brings the bison to the plain,
He bears the dead to earth below,
from evening stars to crowns of snow.
But feel the darkness in the land!
Such venom in the heart of man!
How will the serpent treat the dove,
the bearer of these songs of love?
The prophet dances, agents lie,
in battlefields the people die
with bullets in their hearts and hands,
their blood poured out to wet the lands;
from mountains crowned with shining snow
their spirits flee this earth below.
A prophet once was crucified
and on the tree he bled and died
as jeers beneath the bloody cross
were mocking him for pain and loss.
He was the Christ; the Roman lance
had pierced him for his spirit dance.
There was a people, proud and tall,
with sun-like mien and worthy all;
for dancing in the winter snow
to bring the spirits here below
they fell beneath the flaming guns,
both score by score and one by one.
What thing may live may also die.
What heart may laugh may also cry.
But those who die may also rise
beneath the starlight in the skies
and hunt and dance and play the games
to which their fathers gave the names.
Thus Christ upon a path of light
will come again some starlit night
to bring the dead to earth below
for spirit dances in the snow.
Darkest Hour
O darkest hour!
You come on me with mounting power I cannot flee!
I have lived well nigh ten thousand years --
but I will die in battle here.
I was born so very long ago my mountained thoughts are crowned with snow;
I was flowered bright in a garden fair beyond the light of the morning air.
The way was long through those endless years;
but I sang my songs and I felt no fear.
And I loved and laughed,
and I felt my way along my path through both night and day.
O! how many thoughts through the mind may run,
and memories caught through those long setting suns?
Though the sun should diminish and time should fail,
my song could not finish the tales I could tell.
But darkest hour!
You come on me with a mounting power I cannot flee.
I have lived well nigh ten thousand years,
but I shall die in battle here.
