National Poetry Month, Day #27

Breath of the Ancients

The way of the indigenous

Mural at La Cusinga, C.R., photo by Author

Breath of the Ancients

A whisper rises
from the gold of the Earth,
fluted through bones,
through feathers, through cloud.

The jaguar stirs in the stone,
The crocodile dreams in the deep.
An owl watches, fierce and knowing,
wings stirring the mist.

All things are bound,
woven by breath and tide,
by root and fang,
by the hush between stars.

Before the first footfall,
Before the first hunger,
The Earth knew us —
not as masters, but kin.

Now, each step matters:
The pulse of a river,
The tilt of a wing,
The tarantula in the hollow tree.

Listen:
The old songs rise in the wind.
Tread lightly.
The world remembers.