Rio Abajo Rio (The River Beneath the River)

A sestina offering:


Dawn blesses the Sangre de Cristos, a redeeming dawn in shadow,
bleeding dry onto the cleansing plain, the vein of redemption
opens where the bones of the earth meet old rivers,
where the wind carries the cries of La Llorona seeking her lost children,
her eyes soft with unshed tears, the unforgiving earth
strewn with forgotten stones, with small bones of mice and rabbits.

La Llorona haunts the careless dunes, floating weightless among the rabbit
brush, the errant wind wild in her hair, evil like a tuning fork among the shadows.
We float in loss and hope, we find no words, we are swallowed by the earth.
Small crimes of atonement mock our redemption.
A storm brews in the boundary lands. Voices of children
along the ancient river echo in the dawn; the arroyo hides the river.

Forgiveness comes with light and searing heat. We seek the coolness of the river.
Shy small deer come to drink, bloody arrows quivering in their dusty hides and rabbit
bones like sharp stones cut our feet. We seek our lost children.
The dead have no privacy in our howling sorrow. They hide in the shadows,
in pinion and sage where the doves go to die; they deny our redemption
in the landscape of the past. They are the bones of the earth.

The dawn fades, the sands shift, we open the veins of the earth.
We cannot bear our sadness, we cannot bear our loss. The old river
beds are dry; they do not yield up the waters of our redemption.
Fortunes are told with old stones, with dried bones of rabbits
tossed carelessly into the fire, the future read in the ashes and fickle shadows.
We stir the cinders of a cold fire, we listen for the laughter of our children.

White Shell Woman rides the ghost ship of the moon, a million cold stars her children.
Sins of omission scar the sacred geometry of the earth.
The cold mountains yield no answer; there are no shamans in their shadows.
They do not answer to the ancient rivers, they know not the ancient rivers
where we walk alone, where we are frightened like timid rabbits,
where we dream the ancient rivers, where we chase the foxfire of redemption.

Lady Raven flies westward, shedding her long shadow. Redemption
lies in the shifting sands, in the prayers of our children:
children playing in the arroyos, children running wild, running free among the rabbit
brush, the unbound wounded, our better angels in the crimson stain of the earth.
Our gnarled hands rake the sands of the Sangres, we remember the ancient river.
Sangre de Cristo. Sangre de Madre. We cast no shadow.

I am your lost daughter.
I am your unknown son.
I sing your salvation.