The Flaming

Thundering music flares

Electrifying the paint horse’s body

Challenging her muscles to

Churn, burn, gallop, sailing westward

Flying through sacred lands of

Natives and immigrants,

Birds, animals, plants, water, and 

Mother Earth.

Initially, the woman was a passenger 

Enthralled with the mare's magnificent power

Soaring over land, rivers, and sand.

Then, horse and woman began to merge

Whirling into one being, 

Powerful thighs racing toward

The setting sun,

Immense strength, energy, passion.

Music reverberates, a cacophony of sound, 

The woman is lying on the flushed earth

Rooted to the underworld

Deep within the forest.

Crackling, pops and swooshes

Of heat flow by and then,

She witnesses the fire

She is becoming the fire 

She is the fire

Sparkling, rippling, 

Prickling and plundering, gobbling up

Every morsel of dryness possible

Flaming, burning, crinkling, torching skin,

Bits of bone, wafting with the 

Wondrous wind, lifting ashes aloft

Floating, swirling up, up, up 

Into the atmosphere,

Moving from living body to air, rising

Higher and higher

Into the sky, red, dark heat.

Fire clearing away debris, brush,

Beasts, limbs, leaves, trunks of trees,

Crispy blood sacrifices of bones and beaks, 

Claws toasted, roasted

Wiping away all sin, all ego 

All of life that lived

Before The Flaming.

After the fire blew itself out,

The horse emerged, then lay down on

The charred forest floor, her journey

Complete as she pushes her foal from her womb,

Forward into life

Full of majesty and light

Unscarred by the forest's fever.

Mother licking baby, soft and sweet

The foal comes to life, breathing in

Clear air, damp smells of birth

Opening her eyes to a new world of

Peace, pain and delight

Joyfully flexing unused muscles, 

And flawless, fresh skin. 

With her mother’s help

She stands for the very first time.