Hidden Tribe.

we would not be fabulous creatures,

no Botticelli dream, no Midas touch;

we choose instead the language of the eyes

and prune words that tumble from impatient lips,

our elegance struggles from the chaos within,

our strength from a shattered crutch.

when he carves the masks from the ebony tree

the artist swims our soul in the wood

until motionless in the river grain

it resonates with our humanity;

then he draws the pigment from the desert soil

and marks the mask with an animal sign.

the shaman holds the life of the tribe

like an ancient fish in his memory,

when the sun is sinking he greets the ghosts

while we chew the leaves so our eyes might see

the forefather’s image in the fire flame

and know the moment as the eternity.

we still avoid the anthropologist

becoming the forest as he draws near,

we whistle the birdsong as he trudges past

amused by his curiosity and fear –

and we’ve watched his death in the autumn moon,

in the blinding flash, in the mushroom cloud.