Ancestrals

by

Lance Henson

june15.2001/july 26.2001
untere hueb, switzerland

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1

there are days born so far away from each other
words too sorrowful to know they are words

all their meanings coming back
without them

2

the old memory washing up in the bells of midnight

I search for you
sitting by the kerosene lamp over forty years now
I have not lost you
I have lost myself

for bertha cook

3

smoke curls out of the window
a gauzed prayer
wrapped in the sound of the wind

here are the things that do not need us
in shadows
beside us

4

silent rivers full of broken mirrors and faces
arriving from the wars

5

it is already yesterday
moving
among
the lamps

6

a dream of a tattered red cloth falling to earth
but whose dream

7

all the sorrowed voices falling away
at the edge of the world

at the edge of everything

8

to move in open country

to sit in a clear place

to guard life

dog soldier prayer
cheyenne

ancestrals

you have known where the moon was
in your sleep it was there
in your breath
in your eyes that were travelling



days past
the same dragonfly in its shadow
in the green rain


awakening
from bullets shattering a vase of water
in kosovo

here the river sings
their names rise up
in a misted rain they put their hands
in our tracks

praying for us


as from a torn place
the leaf falls
leaving its name on the wind
and the birds in their songs


the day made of thin glass breaking
through our names

through our hearts


a birds faint calling
far away

where the wind is standing





somethings moving through
your shadow
through your laughter

through your tears


on the edge
your life on both sides

listening for the other



august 3.2001

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© 1998 Lance Henson

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