Paha Sapa (Black Hills)

How I remember you

My sacred Paha Sapa

A living breathing landscape

Mountains rising like towers

Rocky ridges the perfect altar

For solitary prayers and ritual

This divine earth evolving

Devolving, revolving

Always in a great majestic arc

The circle that marks everything

The circle symbolized by the moon

The sun

The earth

The planets

The stars

The seasons

Day, night, dawn, dusk

Birth, death and eternity

And your beautiful porcelain face

Your round eyes the shrine where I kneel

I rested quietly upon a stony ridge

Contemplating the meaning of life

Taking in the fragrant scent of pine

And listening to the rustling breeze

Stars glittered and flickered

Brittle in the distant heavens

The Milky Way finally rejoiced

As we were once again as one

Just beyond the firelight and glowing embers

Sparks flew gracefully like summer fireflies

A glorious ancient cadmium moon rose up

Ascending the quinacridone eastern horizon

Each passing cumulonimbus a brush stroke

The mercurial silver moon a  masterpiece

And now just listen..

To the frigid rapids of tiny streams

And the placid surface of rocky pools

Reflecting a myriad of luminous ancestors

Roaming freely across the incandescent heavens

Rejoicing just before the first light of dawn

As morning burns away the blinding afterimage

Of translucent ephemeral dreams of love