La Loba’s Song* — By Lindsey Martin-Bowen – The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative

(TO MAKE SKELETONS RISE)

. . . I heard a noise: it was the rattling as the bones

came together, bone joining bone. . . .I prophesied

as He told me, and they came alive and stood

upright. Ezekiel 37:7-10 (NAS)

Tonight we cry in soul-deep songs:

Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō yō.

At the dawn, we will sing of joy:

Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō yō.

Our voices will rock the desert

hot with incessant summer winds:

Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō yō.

Our songs stir seas. Skulls and knuckles

rise from the deep, lift to high peaks:

Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō yō.

Our words penetrate aspens, oaks,

junipers, pines, and Joshuas:

Eee yō yō. . .Eee yō yō.

Our sounds now strip the forests clean:

to unearth all those underneath.

Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō yō.

The bones we gather rise and dnace

to our music. And we sing loud

praises to the Creator:

Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō yō. Eee yō yō. . . .Eee yō.

~ Lindsey Martin Bowen

Published in Crossing Kansas with Jim Morrison (Paladin Contemporaries 2016).

*According to Southwest legends (from various tribes

and Mexican cultures), La Loba (The Wolf Woman) works

with angels to gather bones of humans and wolves.

Lindsey Martin-Bowen: Last July, 39 West Press released her fourth poetry collection, Where Water Meets the Rock. Her third, CROSSING Kansas with Jim Morrison (in chapbook form) was a semi-finalist in QuillsEdge Books 2015-16 contest. A poem from her Inside Virgil’s Garage (Chatter House 2013) was nominated for a Pushcart, and Standing on the Edge of the World (Woodley), was a Top 10 Poetry Book for 2008 (McClatchy). New Letters, I-70 Review, Thorny Locust, and others have run her work. She teaches at MCC-Longview and dreams of Pendleton, Oregon.

Guest Editor Denise Low, second Kansas Poet Laureate, has published over 20 books of award-winning poetry and essays, including Ghost Stories (Woodley) and Natural Theologies, essays about Mid-Plains literature (Backwater Press). Low was visiting professor at the University of Richmond and Kansas University. She taught at Haskell Indian Nation University, where she founded the creative writing program. She served Associated Writing Programs as board president. She and her husband Thomas Pecore Weso publish Mammoth Publications.