Kate Buss: The Dead Pecos Town

“Above the steep arroyo of russet running straight with rose
The Pecos pueblo sleeps—
A mound of dust timbered with bones.
Three silver yuccas flower on the grave.
For headstone, cut by frost and all its edges shriveled by the desert heat,
A mission leans against the wide still sky.
I too am watching with time.
Where I stand, the crusted gravel cracks
And ghosts of seven centuries are stirred.
Shards of painted pots lie like mosaic on a shattered floor.
A frost-white shin-bone rattles down the slope,
Strikes a fellow and finds the plain.
Jaws are set and dead mouths smile—
Bones of martyrs, pioneers.
Feet that once were dancing lie with rain gods,
And thin broken spears.”