Kall Me Kokopelli

images borrowed from rationalobserver.com

Kall Me Kokopelli

“The flute is a heart song, like a

sweet prayer.”--Kokopelli.

Not far from Four Corners monument,

     I crossed into Colorado and drove up a

           steep winding road for miles, emerging out

     onto a pine tree forest on a high plateau

called Mesa Verde--named by Spanish

explorers in 1776, while America struggled

to become a country in the east.

                               This National Park was created in

                          1906 by Theodore Roosevelt, who was

                      the father of our park system. Indians lived

                 there in 7500 BCE, up to 22,000 of them, finally

             abandoning the area in 1250 AD after years of

      drought, warfare, & even cannibalism.

The park is huge, with over 600 cliff dwellings

       preserved there. with names like Fire Temple,

                                                            the Palace,

My young wife was able to climb        Spruce Tree House,

up & down the very steep stone         Square Tower,

steps so she could get close               Oak Tree House, &

to the sandstone villages, but              Sun Temple

I had to skirt along the jagged

edges of the cliffs, watching her with powerful binoculars.

This gave me more time to study all the petroglyphs. I

fell in love with the rock art star who appeared countless

times--the hunchbacked insect-like flute player called

Kokopelli, a god of agriculture, a fertility deity with

feathers or antenna protruding from his head, a spirit

of music, & a trickster god.

Ancient man always

adapted--carving homes out

of sandstone rock cliffs.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub