Barbara Attaway

Wind
Wind blow
Blow me far away
Away from my grief
...

Is not the summer prairie calling to you
Sultry days lazily await your rollicking voice
To answer and cool the afternoon
Only daubers busy themselves in this heat
...

'Higher, higher, swing me higher, Dad-o!
I can almost touch those leaves with my big toe...
I did it! I touched them! Now we can let the cat die, Dad-o.'
...

Shhhhh.....stay quiet
There is big medicine in being reverent
Around Medicine Wheel
One must esteem this place, son of my son
...

come and get it
i call to the boys
please wash your hands
and put up the toys
...

Whirlwind lifting shapeless seas
Frosted
Crashing
In hot breeze
...

They stand as sentinels against azure storms
Assured as most storms of life, it's supposed
Although bared of dress, although naked as jays
Winter's trees umbrella from worst of those
...

Sitting at brackish-brown water's edge
Hands, blue-veined, sore to the bone
Strong tanned fingers, through muddied sand, dredge
And seek Early Man's sharpened stones
...

I remember a day not so long ago
You sat under hot CBS lights
Giving your account
Of that first 'Day of Infamy'
...

We had hiked the hills a long, long way
My privilege was to gift their feet that day
Soak in warm water, soothe with mint lotion
Seemed to me just the right heaven-sent potion
...

To preserve this day, I pick red plums wild
Within my soul, I dream a while
A vision ancient, to me smiles
Of plums growing wild in thickets dark
...

He listened for The Master
Voicing not his woes
His thoughts were sombre, pensive
'I know my time is close.'
...

Gone
are my dead

Loved souls
...

A beggar's tired voice
Rings out seeking pity

His cup rattles constantly
...

We watched her approach
That dark, heavy beauty
With blue-black coif
All rolled up
...