ANTEPASSADOS, By Lara Gularte

ANTEPASSADOS

1
A blackbird passes above
where the world
moves over the horizon,
to the upper air,
thinness beyond breath,
shifting bodies, many voices.

2
Years of lift and scrape,
slip and crack,
the Siskiyou mountains.
My gold hunter ancestors,
their prints on yellow ore,
memory of gold nuggets.

3
With beating wings,
they slip away
and the sun runs cold in the pasture
where a frozen bird lies,
and seeds sleep uneasily,
unsure of their time.

Lara Gularte