The huge red-buttressed mesa over yonder Is merely a far-off temple where the sleepy sun is burn- ing Its altar-fires of pinyon and of toyon for the day. The old priests sleep, white-shrouded, Their pottery whistles lie beside them, the prayer-sticks closely feathered On every mummied face there glows a smile. The sun is rolling slowly Beneath the sluggish folds of the sky-serpents, Coiling, uncoiling, blue-black, sparked with fires. The old dead priests Feel in the thin dried earth that is heaped about them, Above the smell of scorching oozing pinyon, The acrid smell of rain. And now the showers Surround the mesa like a troop of silver dancers: Shaking their rattles, stamping, chanting, roaring, Whirling, extinguishing the last red wisp of light. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FINE DAY by KATHERINE MANSFIELD ARMOR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON AN ANCIENT PROVERB by WILLIAM BLAKE HYMN OF THE EARTH by WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING (1817-1901) METRICAL FEET by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO LIZBIE BROWNE by THOMAS HARDY |