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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ARIZONA POEMS: 6. RAIN IN THE DESERT, by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER Poet's Biography
First Line: The huge red-buttressed mesa over yonder
Last Line: Whirling, extinguishing the last red wisp of light.
Subject(s): Deserts; Food & Eating; Native Americans; Rain; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America
First Line: The huge red-buttressed mesa over yonder
Last Line: Whirling, extinguishing the last red wisp of light.
Subject(s): Deserts; Food & Eating; Native Americans; Rain; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America
The huge red-buttressed mesa over yonder
Is merely a far-off temple where the sleepy sun is burn-
ing
Its altar-fires of pinyon and of toyon for the day.
The old priests sleep, white-shrouded,
Their pottery whistles lie beside them, the prayer-sticks
closely feathered
On every mummied face there glows a smile.
The sun is rolling slowly
Beneath the sluggish folds of the sky-serpents,
Coiling, uncoiling, blue-black, sparked with fires.
The old dead priests
Feel in the thin dried earth that is heaped about them,
Above the smell of scorching oozing pinyon,
The acrid smell of rain.
And now the showers
Surround the mesa like a troop of silver dancers:
Shaking their rattles, stamping, chanting, roaring,
Whirling, extinguishing the last red wisp of light.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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THE OLD INDIAN by ARTHUR STANLEY BOURINOT
SCHOLARLY PROCEDURE by JOSEPHINE MILES
ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON
THE INDIANS ON ALCATRAZ by PAUL MULDOON
PARAGRAPHS: 9 by HAYDEN CARRUTH
THEY ACCUSE ME OF NOT TALKING by HAYDEN CARRUTH
AMERICAN INDIAN ART: FORM AND TRADITION by DIANE DI PRIMA
ARIZONA POEMS: 2. MEXICAN QUARTER by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER