he can still be found, an echo of himself,
a hunch-backed, purpled shadow trapped
by the unearthly light of the westering desert sun.
he can still be sensed, the faintest trace of his manic laughter
is borne upon the hot wind that teases the aunts and the uncles,
the pinion and saguaro and teddybear cholla.
the ancient's dreams of him can still be seen,
amber-petrified in sunwashed sedona stone.
his stories reside in the baked canyon's ochre rock,
and in its shade the old shapeshifter hides;
trying on different skins; a rattlesnake resting, a coyote, hunting.
the echoes of his bone flute haunt the canyon walls
on still nights, drifting up to kiss the cold stars; nature's medicine.
and on those nights when the wind is calm and the old music soars,
petroglyphs begin to squirm in the brilliant moonlight,
and to dance, teased back to life by the merry-moody notes of his song.
as he sheds his skins, one by one, the coyote falls silent, the rattlesnake dreams;
and the old trickster, charmed and enchanted by his own feverish sound,
begins to stamp and to whirl and to dance.
all night he dances, so hard and so long;
he dances the disk of the sun right up over the horizon,
until it sears the land, blood red.
the rattlesnake awakens and the coyote howls;
the whirling figures freeze into stone once more.
kokopelli he does a quick fade,
but a ghost of that tune, that intoxicating tune,
continues to echo throughout those red canyon walls.