YESTERDAY

After a cultural heritage tour with Randy Lewis

A compilation by Susan Evans, Bill Layman, Bruce Morrison and Karen Jacobsen

The door where there is no door opened yesterday.
On the bus we hear ancient songs along the river.
Stories animate the creeks, canyons, rock formations, river bends.
The land moves, comes alive with presences,
Spirits; powerful, elemental –
Sometimes malevolent shape shifters.
There is a rattlesnake flying above us. Terrified people cling to its back.
The blood of a monster runs in red ribbons along the cliffs.
Back on the bus stories come faster and faster, pouring over us.
Rays, arcs, and lines hold sacred figures on rocks.
We form a circle not remembering who we are.
Dreamlike, old people standing beside us – like smoke.
They whisper of diseases, death, allotments given and taken away, children stolen.
“Can you open your hearts and remember” they ask?
On the last stop a lake with blue stone for pipes!
Every place has gifts to use, share and trade.
Cedar roots hang down like curtains on a rock wall and turn into baskets.
Food bundles of dried fish, seeds and roots are pounded and baked and folded into hide.
Bundles delivered to two old uncles who lived just here where we are passing.
The bus is quiet now rolling home. We stumble off the bus. We are never the same.
The door where there is no door opened yesterday.