I’uni Kwi Athi? Hiatho.

White horses, tails high, rise from the cedar.

Smoke brings the fat crickets,

trembling breeze.

Find that holy place, a promise.

Embers glow like moon air.

I call you back from the grasses.

Wake me when sand pipers

fly. They fade,

and new sounds flutter. Cattails at sunrise.

Hair matted by sleep.

Sun on the meadow. Grey boughs lie tangled.

The ground I was born to

wants me to leave.

I’ve searched everywhere to tell you

my eyes are with the hazels.

Wind swells through fences, drones a flat ache for hours.

At night, music would echo

from your womanless bedroom.

Far down those bleaching cliffs,

roses shed a torrent.

Will you brush my ear? An ice bear sometimes lumbers west.

Your life still gleams, the edge melting.

I never let you know.

You showed me and how under snow and darkness,

the grasses breathe for miles.

Notes:

I’uni kwi athi? hiatho - father’s name. He never told us what it meant.

Source: Star Quilt (Holy Cow! Press, 1984)