Ancestors Are Calling

Sometimes the ancestors call

                                                                            tongue to mouth
                                                                            an auburn molt of daguerreotypes stained

Sometimes the ancestors call

                                                                            an earwig gracefully arranged
                                                                            a pebble between pincers caught
                                                                            is the scene’s composition

Sometimes the ancestors call

                                                                           shovel heeled curt wedge of earth,
                                                                           a convent of daisies assaulted
                                                                           a lunar moth poised at dung end
                                                                           oak leaf suddenly caught at mid-fall

Sometimes the ancestors call

                                                                           dark sip sickle scythe curve
                                                                           a wagon’s tracks from coffins weighed
                                                                           Wind to forecast their arrival
                                                                           Wind to dictate the shuffle
                                                                           and strut of steps
                                                                           to the rust of gates.

Sometimes the ancestors call

                                                                  Not in the great cinema graphic arias
                                                                  Of gun firing bandits at a locomotive’s gray smoke
                                                                  But in rage of gray starlings
                                                                  Circling over head 

Not in the paranoia of walks down bug house corridors
Nor to bed pans brimmed do they call.
Not in the paranormal cadences
                                                                        of cathedral spiked with sepulcher and crucifix

I could be anything
other than what I propose here
                                                                                 I could be song
                                                                                                        I could be dance
                                                                                                                            I could be slab of sky

How many generations still left to measure?
At what cost this cadence?
At what price the grave’s granite thumb?