Secrets in Plain Sight

An old woman hides
in the garden.  Her young self
climbs into the car; we drive
at high speed backwards
down the mountain.    
We are dark women
become white witches,
unchurched nuns, contraries,
clowns.  

A blue bowl on the table
is a womb, the night sky,
the cave where wild children
sleep.  Roots, the rings of a tree,
a yellow leaf fallen into the pond,
the essence of the tree
before it was made,
the sound in the mountain.

At Chaco Canyon a crossroad
orders the world.
Where mesa ends
and Badlands begin,
new pots are broken
on the stones below,
making and unmaking,
offered to the Spirit of the North.

A hidden maze carved
behind an angled stone
pierced by arrows of light
at solstice and equinox,
joins earth to heaven
- secrets in plain sight
repeated over and over -
the world that was
and still is.

---