In the Caribbean, fish once took rainbow directions
from the sky to cloak themselves in magic
and they wore the first colors to inhabit the earth.
blue invented itself because ice,
once part of the sky, was lonely for itself.
At Ayers Rock the red of ancient stones
was dusted with chalk handprints
to keep Dreamtime alive another 40,000 years.
When the last artist died, eons slipped into dreamlessness.
The shaman's grandson leaves a handprint,
but he doesn't know the sacred rites or the stories.
A part of poetry has died.
The last keeper of the old ways to die
is the man who knows the burial rights.
He cries himself to sleep knowing,
He cries himself to sleep knowing,
because there is no one else left
who knows the proper way of burial,
he will not join his ancestors.
No one will place his spinal bones in the cave
No one will place his spinal bones in the cave
so he too may enter into Dreamtime.
In Guatemala, the jungle dresses itself in green
like parrots budding on branches.
Soldiers absentmindedly click their machine guns,
the color of commerce and domination.
2/1988
slightly edited
added 9/15/2016
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