The next poem is called "Shalako."
The Shalako dances are winter solstice
ceremonial dances held in the New Mexico Pueblo of Zuni
around the tenth of December each year.
"Shalako."
"Waiting to enter houses, mudheads
tilt adobe faces to the light.
Birdlike gods clack their beaks and stamp through snow
to eat squaw bread in a green kitchen.
Being a god is to know the roads back
to one's ancestors, the way to rise and pass,
the path of blue shells broken from abalone and purple-hearted
snails.
They crossed the river at dusk.
The cold clanged like iron as they entered the village
with shuffling steps and a ticket
to Coronado's city of gold torn by the mountain.
People turned spotlights on them.
Pinned to the dark, they cawed back to the mesas.
Conquistadors dropped to the mud at midnight.
Wild horses that dragged them there
hide in the canyon 30 generations later.
The pure ghosts smile and sidle past one another.
Year after year, the tall beings shyly
ford the river, hybrid in the beginning
as they are at the end."