Copyright © 2011 Diana Garcia. All Rights Reserved
I lay upon my last breaths
Drenched in the strangeness of my surroundings
A prisoner
A pariah
Palpable heat is my reflection in the darkness
Which mirrors the sadness in my heart,
Like a crumpled tumbleweed in the hot wind where I rode
And browned my skin with freedom.
I am slapped into silence for chanting my warrior’s song.
I am not really there, enchained.
Yet my mind takes me back to the far Chiricahua mountains.
I am dressed like a man
I fight like a man
My brother, Victorio, is victorious in his light.
We sing the war song together and become one with our people.
Not in the prison trains where my Apache brethren were expelled.
I will not wallow in Goyaałé’s sadness
Which I saw on the train bound to his swampy destination in chains.
We ride, running stealthy-swift, by horses feet;
The stolen ones in my bravado.
I am shaman of light and vibrations
Touched by the dawn of the Supreme Deity
Powerful and engulfed in light
Like the sun’s reflection in a raindrop.
Seeking answers from the four directions.
I am healer for my people,
Their love for me is my shield
And they name me a she-warrior
I am transformed into mountain song at dawn
Where I will eternally walk the trail, alone
Unmarried
Childless
Unbound
To sing and meditate and I reach upward to the skies
To grasp the webs of rays that flow through me.
The people are my children now.
I quake with the vibration of second-sight
I am shown the way.
I turn to the four directions
And give thanks.
I pay homage in green-gold chant
Like winds across the desert shrubs
The translucent mist of time remains
This arid rocky vista is my home
Where are our enemies hiding, Nana?
We will vanquish them
And will remain elusive in the shadows of the dust.
Across the skies we will ride again
The last to be chained
The last to be bound and sent away.
With this vision I will breathe my last,
To join my brother, my people, in freedom.
The Thought Harpy 