I dream

I’m back in the valley where

the farm that grew me still glows.

Golden grainy silver dust

Captured by warm childhood sun.

 

I walk

through fields of clodded dirt,

searching for something misplaced.

Long hidden in the plowed lines of family fields and absent roads.

Rising up through layered years of

gathered hopes and fought back tears.

Homestead sweat and rusty nails reach out

to puncture the work day with a ruptured tire.

 

I see

a sliver of icy black blade-sharp chipped obsidian

gathered far or near from here.

Whittled by a moccasinned soul

kneeling on this strategic ridge.

One eye always scanning for fear,

the other casually sculpting death.

 

I pry

the frozen arrowhead

from the powdered sun and upside roots.

Greet the past with a nod to the warrior man.

Was this carelessly lost from a leather pocket?

Or did he let it fly only to watch it

Startle and bolt his hopes away?

 

I thank

the random plan

whose great precision subtly hid

this volcanic slice of brittle liquid rock.

And the curious drive my grandpa shared

as we silently stalked our land,

searching carefully to save this factual art

from the steel sharp dig of industrial claws.

 

I wake

with the permanent ache of empty hands.

Knowing I will never walk our land again.

A place now owned by invading trespassing shadows.

Strangers violating my well-worn paths.

They will not think to look to find

the buried link to all that’s passed.