Playa Dust

There is an old god who lives
in a dusty corner of America
The name of the god is lost
but the name is also
[Burn, Rust, Remember, Fight, Disrupt]

In America immigrants,
travelers, drifters and conquistadors,
settlers, squatters, and colonizers
hunters, homesteaders,
and all their children,
rumbled across the Land–
a great lahar of people
hauling their memories, tales,
gods, dreams,
and other debris.
They changed the world
with Violence.

And the world changed and so
the old god in the dusty corner of America
was forgotten.
But the old god
[Cut, Howl, Avenge, Hope, Fly]
knew what Change was.

The old god, with Fire in its hair and spit
which could make a man see
through dark thresholds–
took a mouthful of Salt
from the great salt lakes, and then
a basket of Pine and Cedar
from the great western forests of this country–
and the old god
[Sing, Breathe, Birth, Sigh, Defend]
brewed a tea.
Poured it across an empty desert and
made a lake
between rough mountain peaks
and before a sunrise more eternal
than the old god was.

When the lake dried
the old god was gone.
A salt desert left behind
and a Memory of magic in the dusty air.