Jacques J. Rancourt

"A Navajo’s relationship to the land begins at birth
when his or her umbilical cord is buried in the ground."

                                                                            --Hoskie Benally
 
 

Somewhere beneath this dry ground,
my umbilical cord rots and dwindles
into a garlic root. On the surface,
our feet beat dirty papered cornstalk leaves
into the earth while carrying buckets of water

from the thinning stream the distance
of two miles. When the bucket
sloshes, the spill browns the pale
sand and recedes quickly to a pinpoint.
Once, rain leaked out of tunnels

and sky’s thin tent and puddled
in orange canyons, and grass strung
through gravel, purple flowers popped
their heads, and tortoises backpacked out,
digging dimples in the gravel,

the loud wet plops filling their basins.
But after the rain seeped into rocky pores
and grass fragiled into straws,
the tortoise licked its chapped lips,
its feet bubbling stovetop rock.

Against hogan clay-baked sides,
against dry foyer poles, against pen fences,
we dream of greener wetter places, wasting
days waiting for the sun to orbit by.
Tattoos, canyons, Spider Rock fades.

The Petrified Forest is nothing more
than bark-textured rubble,
ant-tunnels where sap once oozed—
my blood’s ooze slows. Petrified People, paling
against clay, blending into rock.

We watch for something
to happen, for moisture’s clean
shawl and the dark clouds to build
while we sit in the thistles
and wait for them to break.