Ghost Dance
Mar. 21st, 2006 11:00 amGhost Dance
an excerpt
By Everett A Warren
~ ~ ~
"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream...
"The nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."
- Black Elk
~ ~ ~
An early Spring Morning...
The dragonfly flashed across the pond, weaving, banking, and then landing on a cattail that leaped from the mire at the foot of a large boulder. Its head seemed to lift up and back, shifting back down. Again, the movement. The insect took off, bright blue body shining in dappled light, then out, over the pond, weaving, banking, and then landing on the cattail again.
Three times she watched the dragonfly as it patrolled its rounds, veering only to chase off a smaller, darker dragonfly. Like a fighter plane on patrol, flying its mission, and then returning to base. Her lips lifted in a smile as the insect veered off its course, choosing the toe of her black patent leather boot instead of the cattail. On the next round, it varied its flight plan once more. Slowly, it lifted its wings, held down a moment, and then free, flicking once, twice... droplets of blood spraying off its wings before it took off again.
Kat tilted her head to the side, her long raven hued locks spilling over her shoulder. She blinked, resolving into a puzzled smile as she watched the insect fly a new path over the water, disappearing from sight on the opposite bank. It did not return. She settled back, incongruous in the natural setting, dressed more for a night at the clubs downtown - which, in truth, was where she had been. But this was her rock, her thinking spot. And, although she had much to think about, she was a little hazy on some of the details.
"Okay," she admitted to the bees and the ducks and dragonflies that remained nearby, "I have absolutely no idea... none at all..."
Copyright (c) 2004 Everett Ambrose Warren