I am here, my children,
Still here, forever here.
Time still flows evenly, endlessly,
Suffusing all earthly things
With a past and a future, with hope and change.
But I am here, waiting patiently outside the flow,
As I have always been
In your absence.

This is your home; I am your home,
And long after the beams and rafters
Have succumbed to the relentless flow,
This will still be your source,
The silenced headwaters of your time.

Time no longer flows through me,
Nor do my eyes follow
The passing of seasons,
The rise and fall of lives,
The motions of the spheres.

I do not feel the weight of waiting
For what will or will not ever be,
Nor view the ageless scene around me
As it drifts on the tide of aeons.
I am merely here, in everything.

I am here if ever you return,
Alone, or with reluctant children,
Or just in unbidden reveries.
And whenever you do, I am here,
Waiting to live again in memory.

I am not weary of the waiting,
Nor of the view.

Dance your feathers, Shaman;
Dance ecstatic madness in your mad ecstasy.
Dance a frenzied fire, unprotected.
Forever dance the dance
For all of us
Who pray for you.

Overwhelm our grieving;
Fortify our failings and scatter all our fears;
Free our hopes from their capricious futures;
Embalm our memories
In royal blue
Of God’s own shawl.

Dance for foolish mortals;
Dance for loss undimmed by remorse or drug or sleep.
Dance for our redemption in your vision;
Foretell all sorrow’s end,
In Heaven’s light,
For all our souls.

Dance your death away, Shaman.
For all of us.

Pride is a standard, not a sin,
The posture you bear for your kin and your kind,
The only true path through the thick and the thin
That measures your passage and mine.

Pride is the message from within,
The constant reminder, the tug in the mind,
The only expression of what you have been,
The honour that you leave behind.

The pride of lions in the sun,
The pride of soldiers all for one,
The pride of laurels to be won,
The pride of duty smartly done.

I stand beneath the grieving sky,
My body and mind stiff with pride for us all,
Courageous and loyal, erect ‘till I fall,
Alive until I, too, must die.

Come and hear the trumpets singing
For the fallen and the wise;
Light the torches of beginnings
Floating far beyond the skies.

Reach around your darkest shadows;
Rise so far you see the light;
Fly above the hills and hollows
Of the now-translucent night.

Lift each other to the promise
Of our never ending tale;
Tell each wizened soul and novice
Time is naught and space is frail.

Claim your place among the heavens;
Cleanse away the fog of fear;
We live on forever after;
Eternity is always here.

I’m alone now.
My scoured body is draped and ready,
Like a sacrifice to an Aztec god.
Minions scurry round in faceless silence,
Making no contact, preparing for the ceremony.

Why won’t he acknowledge me?
Why hide behind the mask? — oh, I forget:
He must protect himself from me ;
I am dangerous to him, even as I lie,
Immobile as a corpse, on this narrow, padded slab.

Is he imagining the motions
He must make, step by step,
The bloody path he must follow?
Or squinting at the memory of someone’s
Burnished hair swirling on the adjacent pillow?

In this place he is my rock and my salvation,
And the last man I may ever see,
Floating above me, surprising as an angel.
Is this what God’s gatekeeper is like:
Indifferently awaiting the next supplicant in line?

He will carry out the task with
Impassive efficiency, with robotic precision,
Then step back, arms folded, and wait again.
I will see him afterwards, his halo gone,
Smiling automatically from above;

And we will part, never having truly met.

I passed your tiny stall a while ago,
And saw you there, the trodden and the icon,
The wretched and the darkest queen of light,
So fierce and timid we must always be
Shielded from your alien intensity.

I did not dare approach you at the first;
Chador aflame, and you as still as marble,
As silent as an executioner.
I rushed to hide from your unyielding gaze,
Only to return to face myself in you.

I feel you probing me in curious alarm,
But cannot see past your disguise.
Are you a painted mannequin,
Alluring symbol, someone’s prize?
Do I remind you of someone
You’ve never seen but still despise?
Am I opaque to you as you
To me, obscured behind a veil of fear and lies?

I pose before you easy in my stance,
Pretending innocence and understanding.
But I can only see with foreign eyes:
A captive in a cell like a cocoon;
A prison you were made to weave yourself,
No bigger than the air around your skin,
With windows narrower than waves of light
To keep your virtue safe inside an endless night.

I cannot feel the smallest part of you,
Ten thousand miles away in all directions;
Yet how absurdly I pretend to know
Your anguish and the road to your salvation.
Can I ever see you as you see yourself?

The dancing’s running late;
I have to wait alone;
When I’m in this state
They think I’m in some mystic zone,
Communing with the Fates
And Furies of the infinite unknown.

The Sun is getting low,
My time will soon be here;
One staff-length to go
‘Til shadows cloak the sacred clearing
To begin the show
Of summoning another rainy year.

Heat rises from the clay;
I’m sweating in the shade;
The makeup takes all day
And very soon will drip away;
Yet none will dare to say
I’m not the great Creator, Ípilé.

I hold the key
To every mystery,
From curing snake bite to eternity.
I am the guide
Who’s seen the other side,
Where all our souls and gods reside.
But I am not so sure I’ve really been
Where this world ends and other worlds begin.

Am I possessed?
Have I been truly blessed?
Are all these incantations meaningless?
Some days it feels
Like there’s nothing to reveal,
And I am just performing for my meals,
Repeating sounds of practiced ecstasy,
Made up by men who lived in doubt, like me.

We all do what we must;
We have our part to play.
If no one’s here but us
We’re still together in our ancient way,
Protected by our trust,
Connected by the homage that we pay.

I can always tell;
Something bothers you;
Gotta be the tassel or the Cross.
There’s no need to stare or turn away;
I won’t ask you for a donation,
Or call on your friends and relations.

I’m a loyal man,
Loyal through and through.
Twenty years I’ve worn my high school tie;
Been much longer with my faithful friends.
We always rely on each other,
‘Cause under the sheets we are brothers.

Look behind the mask and see the truth beneath the hood;
See the person, not the symbol or the fire or the blood;
See me only standing up for what is pure and good;
Anyway, when we are done, we’ve only burned some wood.

You’re an honest man;
You know truth from lies;
See what stepping out on God has wrought:
Bloodlines desecrated and defiled.
An honest man has to admit it;
A loyal man wouldn’t permit it.

I’m a family man,
Barbecues and all;
Coaching ball, attending church, and soon
I’ll be boss at Pop’s appliance store.
A family must be defended;
The flower of youth must be tended.

All is lost if no one takes responsibility;
It’s the price we have to pay to keep our children proud and free.
We won’t tell you how to live, but let’s get one thing clear:
Right is right and race is race, and you’re not welcome here.