RANGE TIPI

We pitched our camp the night the moon was new
not far from where the eagle makes her nest,
while clouds that had been building in the west
grew into thunderstorms as they moved through
so, by the time the supper plates were clean,
the Milky Way was bright above our beds
and on the far horizon anvil-heads
throbbed silently in orange, yellow, green.
We banked the coals, then watched as stars and words
surprised us with their quick and burning flight
across the open pastures of the night,
our eyes the embers and our lips the birds
that flew up from the goddesses and gods
of reckless hearts, of tongues of lightning rods.