The Road to the Spring: Collected Poems of Mary Austin

Puye

312 Puye I Here, say our father’s fathers, Out of the Womb-world, out of Sipapu, climbing By the roots of the royal pine, Came the First people. Mother naked, sandal shod, Hollowing their homes in the cliff side, Fencing them with junipers. In those days they were instructed of the juniper, Whose boughs springing back taught them the bow play While the reeds by the waterholes sang to them of arrows, For whose feathering they gathered Eagle plumes on Puye. In those days the rains were plentiful, The deer also, with their spotted fawns Feeding on yellow flowers; And the tall bucks cropping the young growth At the ends of the blue spruce branches. Here then, as now, was silence, And the wide outlook whence the rains came, With their wing feathers edged with dark cloud, With the far-flung lightnings over their heads And green, flowery footprints. Where are they now, those Ancients? Where are the wapiti, the round horned elk They watched moving in the deep arroyos, Like a bare wood, walking? 313 II After these came the Small-House People, Say the old men. Very wise this People, People of the Seed, Having received it from the Six Corn Maidens. They laid up walls four-square, roofing them with aspens, Kivas they built, underground, remembering the Wombworld , Dark Sipapu and the Black Lake of Tears. Not ours, but kin to us, the Small-House People, Giving honor to Awányu, the great plumed serpent, Guardian of the water springs, to whom the rains are friendly. For them corn sprouted in the open spaces, The fragrant bean plant and the gaudy squashes. Wise were they of guile; came the deer to their singing, While their women made them pots of painted borders, And bore many children. III Here came our fathers, Say the song priests, Came the Tewas, came the Queres, Moving south and ever south, so the clans may prosper, Say the old men. Not as the Small-House People came our fathers, Every man to his own roof and the field between them, But as a mother-hive, bound by the hearth keeper; Wall touching wall and all the smokes commingling. Still at Tyuoñi, cut above the door holes 314 Are the clan signs of the Queres, But our fathers built at Puye. Happy were our fathers, greatly did they prosper, Dancing to the tombes and the deer hoof rattles Till they brought the rains over Jemez, The he-rain and the she-rain on Chirígi; Till they heard the runnels gurgling Round the roots of the great corn plant And the lovely melon flowers. Friendly, very friendly were the Small-House People; Learning Tewa wisdom, they drew their homes together; Round the rock of Puye ranged the Tewa hearth holes; So the towns were builded. Very many towns, and we talked across the housetops By the smoke signs and the tombes Návawi and Shufiné, Óttowi and Tsánkawi, Calling them to Puye. Noble was our Pueblo, north house and south house, Far across Chirígi stretched our temporales, Round the tasseled corn blue butterflies were dancing As our fathers danced for rain and gave praises to Awányu. Long was that time, very long, Say the old ones, Hip deep the trails between Óttowi and Tsánkawi, Deep the trails on Puye. Where are they now, those light stepping moccasins Bit the rock walled trails between the happy Pueblos? Where are the pronghorns that like shadow clouds in summer Skimmed across Chirígi? 315 * Faithless were our fathers, Say the snake priests, Pride was in their hearts and their thoughts left the straight road, Pride of field and housetop, terraced ever skyward; And no praises for Awányu. Left they the dance and the secret Kiva vigils, Sang they of love, and of war and wounding, Black were their prayer sticks, raven plume and owl feather, Black prayers for Puye. In those days Awányu, Say the old, old men, Left the Tewa land where no longer sacred meal roads Traced the spirit path to the four world quarters, And men’s hearts had left the straight road; Left off honoring Awányu. High across the heavens in disdain he flung him, In the middle heaven white his ghost goes writhing All across the midnight Over Puye. Then the rains walked not, and the water...