Gary Every

Gary Every has appeared in many publications including Home Planet News and Nerve Cowboy. He lives in Oracle, Arizona.

Bear Dance

My friend lives in a teepee,

hidden amidst the oak covered hills.

He points to a shallow mountain pass

and says,

“ Last storm, I was playing my drum to the rain

when I swear

that I saw

a bear silhouetted on the ridge.”

As we ramble between the cholla and the scrub brush,

he says,

“I was a little afraid

so I played my drum loudly

to frighten him away.”

We climb to the mountain pass

and discover where a tall tree

has been struck by lightning;

a branch is split and splintered.

The bark is charred.

Beneath the tree

is a pile of bear shit;

several piles.

Some scat is fresh;

with bits of paper inside-

trash bear.

The mountain pass is apparently a corridor,

a regular bruin highway

to the edge of our rural suburbia.

I tell Jerry,

“You had better beat the drum loudly,

to scare the bears away.”

He shakes his head.

It will never work.

Bears love to dance.

Soya

Atop the Hopi Mesa

a soft warm desert wind pushes

horse tail clouds and tiny white butterflies

to the edge of the cliff.

The ravens scavenge trash far below.

While I stand on edge of the precipice,

so high my head spins from vertigo.

Jerry plays his Native American flute

and a rock wren bobs his head to the beat

while the construction workers shovel and hammer in rhythm

like a shaman’s drum and rattle.

I eat some blue corn piki bread

cooked by the brown grandmother

who has welcomed us into her home,

her living room filled with old photos

and art for sale-

art made by herself, her children, and grandchildren.

All art is for sale

except for one piece

drawn by her great grandchild,

a picture of an old lady, his beloved Soya,

watering a giant sunflower.

“He drew a picture of me,” she says with a smile,

“Because I am always watering plants.”

Before we leave,

she asks Jerry to play another song.

“Maybe it will bring rain,” she says.

I stand beneath the shadow of a satellite dish

waiting for a truck to thunder by

atop a narrow mesa

while prayer sticks adorned by eagle feathers

wave in the summer wind.

From high atop the mesa

I watch a vast landscape

which has seen only superficial changes

for thousands of years

and countless generations of Hopi grandmothers

praying for rain and watering flowers.