WUPATKI: NORTH OF FLAGSTAFF

A silent watch
eight hundred years
these gray-green hills have stood
since witnessing the exodus
of those who raised these massive walls
---stone on artful stone
to build their lives
on black volcanic ash.

Though pilgrims, we intrude.
The silence of the hills and stones
halts conversation.

We walk with silence
through the empty rooms
---beneath the sky,
step cautiously
between the stones,
and meet the small brown lizard’s
watchful eye

as,

high above the silent hills,

two golden eagles

------ ----- --circle

------------ ------- - in the blue.

                                        1976–2020

Copyright © Robert D. Sutherland, 2020