The Fingers Light the Western Stars
       

The Milky Way crosses
a streaking satellite on its path
beyond Ursa Major, the galaxy
above the cemetery at Cloride
where graves hold families killed
by Apaches in the Gila, the great
Andromeda constellation vanishing
beyond the mountains above
the mining town.

The last time I climbed there,
toothless Mr. Clarke was 98,
last survivor of a Cloride family,
his parents killed by the tribe.
The cemetery protects their names
as distant planets go by in sleep,
names in the sky draping myths
around intrusion, pines and
salt cedars covering the path.

There were clusters of stars
Mr. Clarke could see when
we looked up, the sprinkled
sky abandoning the heart,
hurtling into a wilderness
that beats on its own.
He pointed at constellations
that he said never lied to him,
the old man wheezing to death
three years later, a light falling
in the desert each time someone
can identify the stars.

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Copyright © 2022 Ray Gonzalez All rights reserved
from Feel Puma
University of New Mexico Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission