Calling Them In (excerpt)

 
 Published in "Messages from Hidden Lake. Vol. 8" Alamosa Public Library Literary & Art Collection, Dec. 2016

     “Honey...?”

     “I gotta tell you something.” He rocked forward, standing to accentuate the message. “something happened last night while you guys were sleeping.”

     “What?”

     “There was a bright light right outside the window, there by the bed - it woke me up. I couldn't see anything out the window but light, because the source was over the house. So I went out on the deck to look. There was a brilliant white ball...” He stretched out his arms to indicate the size, “...and it was hovering right over the bedroom!”

     “Oh, my god! What did you do?”

     “Nothing! I was petrified. I could only stand there and watch it! Beams of light, four, I think, came out of it and one shone on me. It raised up a little, then shot straight up and disappeared! I came back inside with you guys and have been sitting here awake ever since. But it hasn't come back.”

     “Should we call someone?”

     “What would be the point? People see crazy stuff all the time. But I gotta say, I've never seen anything like this. It scared me silly.”

     “That explains why I had that weird feeling of being watched all last evening.”

     “Yeah. What if it comes back?”

     “What if it's after the baby?”

     “I'm staying awake tonight, or sleeping in the living room.”

     “Good. I probably won't sleep either. I want to talk to someone though. I'll ask the neighbors if they saw anything.”

     “That'd be alright. You don't have to go into detail.”

     “What time did it happen?”

     “Between two and three a.m., I think.”

     “No one up then, but it won't hurt to ask around. I'm gonna call Mama, too. She'll have an idea.”

     Crazy as my Mama is, she always seemed to know what was happening, especially if it was in a galaxy far far away. The morning air was clear and clean and typical. I felt good. The uneasiness had vanished like a nightmare in the sunlight. Only excitement remained. I checked with the neighbors; everyone had been asleep; no reports of strange lights. So we decided to stow the story away to be retold around a campfire. Then we called Mama on speaker phone.

     “So Krishna, you didn't get the rifle and shoot it down?” she asked. That, of course, would have been her first instinct.

     “Hell, no, Mom. You don't go and attack something like that! What if it returned fire?” Funny, you'd think with all his video game practice he'd have taken the gun outside with him. I'm glad my husband can keep his head.

     “I guess you're right, son. Well, there is someone you should tell. I'm sure they'd like to know. The SETI conference is in your town all week. You didn't know?”

     “No, Mama,” I sighed. “I don't pay attention to all the weirdos who come through here.”

      Mama would have known, of course. She was up on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. “There must be intelligent life somewhere,” she'd say, “cause there ain't none on this planet.” 

Sweat Lodge

Published in E.P.I.C. magazine, Durango edition, Nov/Dec 2016

SWEAT LODGE

by Winter Ross

We throw cedar on the rocks,

Breathe and Bless ourselves and Pray

For each other and the World.

Water Pourer calls the Buffalo.

From its horn, he dashes water on the glowing stones.

Even though the earth vibrated beneath our feet as we stood

Near the line of tobacco linking fire to buffalo-skull altar,

The horn runs dry.

A river rock cries and cracks in the hot dark.

We have never known him, and so

Buffalo does not come.

Fire Tender calls the Stones.

“Aho! Welcome, Grandfathers!”

I pray only the prayers in my heart.

I don't need tobacco, lectures on magic, feathers or judgement.

I need the smell of copal: its sweet scent rising on the breath of the rock people,

Sweat and heat to ease the ache in my back and

The voice of the Singer to take me to the Other World and so

I sing only the songs I know.

Drummer calls the Bear.

I imagine him ripping through this cloth dome.

Sitting in the line of power, we would receive his claws.

What would we do

With our bloody tattoo?

Flaunt the wounds as a badge of honor like the flesh offered at Sundance?

This is hubris, and so

Bear does not come.

Nephew prays for his vision;

He is praying for the healing of his Earthly eyes.

Grandmother prays for everyone's vision;

She is praying for our Spirit eyes.

Together, we call for the Door;

The night mist is sliced into moonlit ribbons and I See:

A Bruja silhouetted in the doorway of a medicine tipi,

Dark light streaming from her fingertips -

Goddess of Past and Future: the Answer to white man's Christ.

No one calls the Spider,

But she has come.

We sit protected in her embrace.

She crouches over us in the sweat lodge,

Eight white willow legs arched into a star shaped web,

Her body is a translucent orb at the Center of the Universe.

As the drum begins its song, I see her heart beating.

We are Children in her trembling nest.

Throw cedar on the rocks,

Breathe and Bless yourselves and Pray

For each other and the World.