‘Anasazi’ and Other Poetry by C. David Hay

Anasazi

Mesa castles in the sky
Where paintbrush blooms and eagles fly.
A people’s passage marked in stone;
Artifacts of flint and bone.

Cliffy cities – vanished host,
Sanctum haunt of hawk and ghost;
Beseech your mummies rise to tell
The secrets time has kept so well.

Shadow dwellers do you know
The coyote cries – the winds still blow
Like specter voices from the past?
Your dreams are gone – the relics last.

Ancient builders of the rock,
Do you leave your stones to mock?
Anasazi, could it be –
Your silent ruins … a prophesy.

The Canyon

Time’s aged and stony monument
Weathers grain by grain.
What the river’s fury left
Now melts in wind and rain.

A thousand shadow fingers reach
Beyond the grand abyss
To touch unconquered cliffs aglow
In sunset’s fading kiss

A nether world of dark and light
Transfixed in a vision sublime;
A window to the ages
Sealed in the bonds of time.

Behold the ancient rocks
Where primordial fossils trod
And sense the humbleness of man
Before the face of God.