The End Of The Fourth World

I am too tired to end this world
I have no strength to pull The Fifth World
Through the 'sipapu' at the edge of the magic river
I have burned the wooden rungs
Polished smooth by generations
Of soft leather footsteps
And my 'kiva' is empty
Save for me and Spider Grandmother

Like me
She is a tale of another tribe
Before casinos
Before we started killing our mother
Before dark work told us we could own the land
Before my tribe broke the hearts of
Ute, Navaho and Hopi
Taught them there was no magic

From cold lands far away runs my blood
Spider Grandmother from the sand painters
She whispers me
The voices of the Twin Warriors

They will not enter the kiva
Of a crazy old man who talks to spirits
They can't know their nature
The tragic perfection of simply being

It is so close I can almost touch it
Grandmother laughs at me when I try
She knows it is not meant for me

You will always be in the 'Fourth World', she says
Bound by the need to know
And forever haunted by the mysteries that can't be

What is my nature?
Why is it so perfectly perplexing
I almost believe her . . .

. . . it isn't not knowing that is the problem . . .

She hangs from a crumbly log supporting
The kiva roof top
She has vanished when I hear

. . . the problem is knowing you don't know . . .

I hear her giggling in the wind's rustle above
And then

How is it, Son of Thor
That you sit in darkness with a Navaho spirit
Waiting for the Blue Star Kachina of the Hopi
And the coming of the Fifth World?

I hear running steps and the laughter of boys outside
I long for Ragnarok and the days when ignorance was bliss

 
27 August, 2K7
ranchoZenrodeo