At the third world's first sun,
the Anasazi climbed
through a portal they called Sipapu
and pressed footprints in the dust
of a new unspoiled universe.
In secluded canyon hollows,
watered by softly chanting springs,
rocks rose upon stone
forming vast adobe cities
mortared with pastes of moistened clay.
At Mesa Verde, Chaco and de Chelly
fields of maize swayed,
brushed by the canyon winds.
while the Pueblos danced in plazas below
to the throbbing beats
of skin-stretched hollow log drums.
Today their distant offspring
circle fire pits in sacred Kivas
intoning chants and prayers
to their hallowed ancestors.
Wearied by famine and conquest,
Pueblo eyes scan the heavens
searching for a new Sipapu -
a portal into a better world still.
September 11, 2006
Published in Oh, What a Tangled Web - edited by Faslund and Euwaite
Robert Charles Howard
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sipapu/
