Un·dream for My Dead

Un·dream for My Dead
poem for didgeridoo and narrator

There. Snake planted in ground,
a stake into Earth's core
that resonates, with alteration,
life. I am unwelcome here.
I am contaminant. I am borne
uninseminated unto this wide space,
open to the north and west,
a place where mysteries are known.

I do not know my ancestors.
They are entombed in Idaho
in a graveyard smashed
by tractors—loggers seeking trees,
cracking headstones, Caterpillar tread.
The old silver mine is dead,
and people needed money, I guess.
It's just bones and rotted wood

beneath the trampled ground.
The gut-sound of that instrument,
his didgeridoo, brings me around.
I want to paint my body, dance
for those dead dead, dance
in ugly rhythm, dance to be sure
of those spirits I don't believe in,
dance those odd spirits still. Dance.