An eye from the Creator,
a fire, bright, setting slowly
over the cusp of the “new world,”

kissing the Old World, softly
to sleep, it is the kissing that is soft,
not the sleeping.

Under the light of that unwanted dawn there is
a warrior still left standing, we
war-journey them

          to the battle and back,
                     to the battle and back,
                                to the battle and back,

radiance, felt through the
water that flows blue but runs red,
around and around

that quickly setting sun,

around and around
a circle, there are
songs for the way our warriors
used to honorably drift away

We used to die in battle
but today they ring out
— “whatchu tryna tell me?”
while we slosh a bottle around,
we laugh about how we are singing

Songs from the wrong eagles,
our war journey is through the hills
with the windows down

In a red ford with
the tribal tag torn
and a car battery in the front seat

We are nurtured,
Remembered,
by the birds who fly
around and around

while we hit our hands
on the hoods of clunkers
and when it stops being sacred,

We laugh,
We funk #49,
here we live,
here we are live.

We laugh,
my warrior, we aren’t
the warriors, of anything
like that, anymore.