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Selection 6 of

Sacred Shale

A desert elegy

by Mary Lambert
Such a stance defies reason.
Between cliff and pitted ground far below,
a wind-blown thread connects you
to all you have been.

Floating there, you show what can be.
Your gauze-like surface cuts a setting sun's rays,
stenciling ancient shadow figures on the land.
Dinosaurs and Chiefs again walk the
blue dusk.

This momentary glimpse
into the nether world is drawn
for those whose hearts can see.

Your umber skin traces the landscape of your
long journey. Hieroglyphs of an ancient
tongue tell your story in all its glory and gore.
This is for those whose hearts can hear.

A power point shares its legacy of wisdom
Its ritual of passage waits. Nature's
midwife comes each dusk to assist
a rebirth for all who can know.

Such are nature's oracles.

This journey, born of turquoise seas
has encoded all that we are.
It lies scrolled in your soft, shale womb.
Your soul voices its need to lament
in wind, sand and canyon castles.

How can we not See? How can we
not Hear? How can we not Know?

This is America's heart reaching out.
She yearns to be embraced and engaged;
to share her eons, thus redeeming our
manifesto of assembly lines, rampant
consumerism, greed and war.

She does not accept that so many
do not heed her healing song,
nor believe that she sings.


Selection 6 of

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Copyright © 2004 by Mary Lambert. All rights reserved.