pic by ilg the other day of Tsé bit’á i “Rock With Wings” – White Man called it, ‘Shiprock’…
Navajo Nation
(first published, 1990 in PAGOSA SPEAKS; A Collection Of Regional Poetry, by Steve Ilg. All Rights Reserved)
Gallup.
Window Rock.
Tohatchi.
Eon-molded tufts
of basalt
and sandstone.
Massey-Ferguson caps.
Thrift-Way stores.
A Navajo Nation of
Wal-Marts and Winnebagos.
Yá’át ééh!
Warrior youth
pound the slience –
the decay
Of soft, long roads.
Heat
and
dust.
On this road –
just past Nakaibito –
A Native American,
hunched, old, and walking.