OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Cibola 1
- Cibola 2
- Cibola 3
- Cibola 4
- Cibola 5
- Cibola 6
- Cibola 7
- Cibola 8
- Cibola 9
- Cibola 10
- Cibola 11
- Cibola 12
- Cibola 13
- Cibola 14
- Cibola 15
- Cibola 16
- Cibola 17
- Cibola 18
- Cibola 19
- Cibola 20
- Cibola 21
- Cibola 22
- Cibola 23
- Cibola 24
- Cibola 25
- Cibola 26
- Cibola 27
- Cibola 28
- Cibola 29
- Cibola 30
- Cibola 31
- Cibola 32
- Cibola 33
- Cibola 34
- Cibola 35
- Cibola 36
- Cibola 37
- Cibola 70
- Cibola 38
- Cibola 40
- Cibola 41
- Cibola 42
- Cibola 43
- Cibola 44
- Cibola 45
- Cibola 46
- Cibola 47
- Cibola 48
- Cibola 49
- Cibola 50
- Cibola 51
- Cibola 52
- Cibola 53
- Cibola 54
- Cibola 55
- Cibola 56
- Cibola 57
- Cibola 58
- Cibola 59
- Cibola 60
- Cibola 61
- Cibola 62
- Cibola 63
- Cibola 64
- Cibola 65
- Cibola 66
- Cibola 67
- Cibola 68
- Cibola 69
- Cibola 71
- Cibola 72
- Cibola 73
- Cibola 74
- Cibola 75
- Cibola 76
Shiwanna (3) (cont’d)
–It can be anyone, a member
of any priestly order.
Live long enough, they say, &
you’ll see the most upright elder
whom no one would ever suspect
become suddenly unbalanced
with hatred, try & take a life . . .
–Sometimes the very one
whose unaccountable luck threatens
to split the People with envy
is himself a witch. Even
a member of the clan of witches
that some say still survives,
still meets in secret.
Whose founder appeared at the Emergence,
so the storytellers recount . . .
–But that First Witch, they say–that thing
helped civilize us, back when
we still had tails & webbed toes,
webbed fingers, extra sets of genitals
on top of our heads . . .
–It gave us yellow corn
with one hand
& death with the other, taught
the trick of turning grain
into food, food into life,
life into other life, presto!
–Crossing back & forth
between beast & human . . .
–The chasm that divides
those holy persons
who devour their food raw
from those who need to cook it
like the refined creatures we have
now become.