soul words

                        luis royos

I want to give birth to the sun each morning into my own hands, to wash myself in the light that reflects as my flesh, revealing moss and loam and damp, rich mineral, I paint clothing out of clay, dress myself with curves and lines and shades, making marks of claim and release, I weave trees and flecks of mica through my hair and gather serpents and lizards atop my head as a crown, spring water falls from my eyes to feed the fields of flowers at my breasts. 

I want to live with the blue sky all over me, with the wet gray fog gathered about my shoulders, slipping off enough to reveal the plains of my skin where the gold of sunlit grasses spreads across my neck and arm and back, and when you look closely you see the buffalo and the hunter, you see the birds rising up at dawn, together, you see the coyote use his tail to pull the sun down below my horizon, you see an old woman, an even older mountain, an even older lake. 

I want to dance with the feathers of eagles at my feet, veins of gold and silver catching light, flowing from my navel, where the drum beats, gems fall with my breath along my wake as I find the sacred steps, my shadow at my side, its four legs silhouetted in the shape of loyalty and the silent bravery of those things which are one with their source, to whom the great plains and deep forests are rich with ecstasy in the dark hours, and when the rhythm goes quiet and the silence comes to reign, both I and my shadow wrap in the wild cloak of space and stars, we settle against the land that bore us, opening a well of senses where we enter and will shelter to await another day.