Indian Summer

There is an Indian burial ground behind my house
Where the flowers bend and grass is green silent
A place for sun-brewed mint tea and the trees to keep their distance
And my brother preferred to play at the front of the house.
From the porch my mind can only bear the thoughts of rituals for so long
The smeared signs of sacred practice dancing against firelight
Grate like the lawnmower and hidden stones
When there is a break in the reassuring stream of cut blades.
After my family is fast asleep in summer’s humid stick
The yard is mine for eyes and dewy sock-less feet
And the grass comes fast and easy as the drums echoing from a muffled depth,
My hands in the earth, pantheistical and crazed.
I will find the buried hatchets
I will hold them above my head
I will run from the field and into the trees
And beat mud handprints onto my bare chest
And bring war to the shadows of each part of this horror