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.
