Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SINGING HANDS, by CAREY YATES BUSBY



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SINGING HANDS, by                    
First Line: Over-under-patient-slow
Last Line: White men wait with yellow gold.
Subject(s): Memory; Paintings & Painters; Pictures


(The Yabetchi, sacred sand painting of the Navaho, is copied each year by old
Klah, the rug weaver; then the sands are scattered and the design held in memory

until next year.)

Over—under—patient—slow,
Steadily my fingers go
Weaving on the loom of years
Pictures of the long ago.

Eye and ear, and heart and hand;
Warp and woof and colored strand;
Across the chasm of the years
Memory's endless web is spanned.

Red is passion fires of youth;
Black, the floods to change forsooth;
Amber, sands of blank despair
To the green of eternal truth.

Paler green is life reborn
In the rose mirage of morn.
Grey is mystery of death
Mated with life in yellow corn.

White is yawning north sky deep;
Azure is southern Heavens steep;
Purple-blue is wings of night
Over rich brown earth asleep.

Memory dies like a battle song.
Echoing the threads and hills among
Throbs the ghostly battle drum
Calling the moccasined throng.

Over—under—weary—old.
Scatter the sands. The fire is cold.
Tie the threads and break the loom.
White men wait with yellow gold.





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