If you take away the plant and flower,
Mine away the stone and mineral,
Separate the spirit from the land,
How will you find
Medicines to heal
Diseases you help to unleash
From their rain-forest homes?

Help me understand,
You with your dollars,
Your blue books,
Your profit margins.

All your possessions
Have left me empty,
Begging on the streets,
Praying for an end
To the killing.

When you kill places and creatures,
You kill people.

You kill hope.

Hope to free us from the serpent of disease
Your killing has created,
Hope lost like the people dead from
Viruses set free
By the death of their land,
The very land that holds
The medicines to heal.

We who survive
Must live
To save life, spirits, ancient wisdom.

Shaman practices
With laptop computer
Powered by the sun.

If women are the spaces between the stars,
the eyes of God,
the womb of God,
then woman is black
absorbing pain and carrying it
hidden from the prying eyes
of the stars that shine
only for a moment,
leaving eternal darkness.

Together we stand
looking up at the broken sky,
wondering if the lights on Brown Mountain are lit by angels.

Sanctus, sanctus.
We dance beneath the midnight blue.
How clear it all seems
in this stillness.
I could almost forget the icy chill
of cold grey dawn
seeping over the eastern face of the ridge.

Sanctus, sanctus.
Sanctify my soul.
Stop morning from entering
my santuary of darkness.
Please, don't take your hand from mine.
Let me believe we are safe from the sun.

Gloria Patri.
Praise for the night.
Only in the dark
will the lights dance for us.
Dawn's angelus send them
deep into the mountain
where I must follow.

Sanctus, Kyrie.
Kyrie Eleison.
Walk with me into the west.
I follow the Brown Mountain Lights
deep into their mystery
until I, too, can carry the light.
Stay by my side until the dawn
brings goodbye.

Who is this rebel who runs wild in my soul,
inspiring riots, protests, and standoffs?

She makes me stretch until my body screams.

She makes me believe the heartless tide
will gently avoid my sculptures of sand
and drop perfect gems in swirls around my ankles.

Wise woman, gap-toothed,
smoking your pipe,
cackling at your own off-color humor,
you shrugged off your skins and feathers,
hid your knife in your shoe,
kept spirit stones in your pocket,
and walked among the powerful men
of the political world.

You said I was your Indian Princess,
your Annakhtara,
sister of your daughter.

Love was fierce
and laughter law
those nights we talked the sun away
and called the moon and stars
to help us search for meaning.
You knew no other way
than to walk your talk.

That was your lesson to me,
empowering me to be an equal
in the face of approaching mortality.
You kept me alive,
and when your turn came,
you left to the sound of a flute
singing goodbye
like wind across the altar
you built in my garden,
a place I go to hear your voice
feather free.

Spider, you watch me
like a wise old woman,
eyes piercing my mysteries.
On my flesh, chill bumps rise
to the power of eight,
power beyond your size
as you sum me up
cruelly, precisely,
measuring me for a silk coffin
where I must wait
for you to make me your apprentice
or devour my wasted flesh
and be done with me.

A year in Chinese prison for owning a photograph
            of His Holiness -

            33 methods of torture.

His Holiness
            meditates
                        to separate body and soul
                        to be ready
                        when death comes.

Beating, killing
            for serenity and a smile
            for a land once sacred
            now a land of memories
            of unmerciful pain
            and death.

Danger
            16-year-old reincarnate
            holds his people as one
            holds Tibet in their hearts and souls

            a simple monk.

A brick
            an iron
                        a believer
                                    destroyed.

Can land be sacred?
            The soul is sacred
            the soul of a man woman child
            the soul of Tibet.

The soul of courage immeasurable.

I can sit
            with a book
                        of Buddhist wisdom
                                    or a Bible
                                                or The Satanic Verses

for I have these freedoms
and do not use
this gift
but take my books for granted.

If they were forbidden
            I would forge them on my mind
                        and this I must learn -

To use my freedom
            to stand for those 
                        who will never know freedom
                                    only exile
                                                and dream of a home
                                                            that is no longer home.

He sits for us
he smiles for us
he calls the Buddha for us
this doctor poet philosopher teacher
            leader father
                        soul of all souls
                                    heart of compassion
                                                happiness and joy.

The Dalai Lama blesses me 
            and I must never take for granted
                        my freedom to learn his words.

He fixes broken watches.
            He laughs and smiles freely.
                        A simple Buddhist monk
                                    holds our tomorrow
                                                in this present moment.

He smiles for me.

We count lives lost in the camps,
display photographs,
build museums,
rise up in patriotic anger,
and we grieve.

Who is left to mourn the Native Americans
who never owned the land
but lived in harmony and balance,
hunger and feast,
war and wisdom,
who died in Euro-American camps
unnamed, uncounted?
Where are the photographs, the museums?

Great Spirit, help us remember.
Allow us to grieve.
Help our souls plummet
beyond anesthetized patriotism,
beyond what some say made this country great,
to what some know brought all people shame.

On Tara Tutare Ture Soha.
The circle of compassion continues
through all her guises:
protector, nurturer, care-giver, guardian angel,
she is the Mother Who Rescues.

Om Tara Tutare Ture Soha.
She comes in colors
like the northern lights
and the setting of the southern sun.

Om Tara Tutare Ture Soha.
She falls like a shooting star
burning cosmic red,
her blood mingled with Mother Earth,
her veins rich with sweet soil,
her heart full of rain.

lilywhite,
darker than burned flesh,
bluer than midnight,
blinding as the sun.
She is silver as the moon,
and she hears the prayers of supplicants.
She is the grey cool comfort of heavy wet fog
lingering across this silent valley.