Mural of a Hopi Vision
Child,
High aloft you are held to the dawn,
Naked,
To feel the sun’s first rays.
The welcoming god will come,
Leaping
Out of the under-world,
To greet you, to bathe, to engulf you
Child,
Straining the brown arms
                of your grandmother.
Silent upon the mesa top,
Above a desert of silence,
We, your people, wait
To strip you, earth-strange, to the sun-god,
Child who have lain in the darkness,
Child who shall live in the sun.
Do you see
The lifting of the dusk,
The white line of the dawn,
The yellow coming of light?
Wailing child,
Behold! He has touched you—the Sun!
~ Emma Hawkridge