The Sombrero You Wore

The sombrero you wore 

said to everyone gathered: 

“Look at me!”

and if that wasn’t enough to catch their eye

when you entered the room as a playful old woman

in your bright Mexican hat,

your newly healed legs sliding backwards, 

moon-walking in slow motion like you were

part Michael Jackson, part Charlie Chaplin, 

told us all that something special was happening. 

The old Lakota medicine man, 

the one who years ago had  

pointed toward Quetzalcoatl 

and said, “seek 

the Plumed Serpent,”

never noticed his old friend,

now a heyoka,

gliding smoothly backwards

across the floor.

Instead, his attention was on me,

his arm firmly around my shoulder

like a long lost son returned.

His arm would not 

relinquish me. 

It remained. 

We sat on the ground,

the old woman and I, 

the two of us facing 

the medicine man, his simple

humble presence solid as 

a mountain of granite before us.

As she leaned back into me

he said, “That wasn’t easy 

last night when she leaned on me 

for over an hour.” 

"My back is strong,” I offered,

and feeling her weight falling into me

said to her, “You can lean on me,

I will hold you up.”

And I remained.

A heyoka is born

by lightning strike, they say. 

I’ve been struck before.

Never saw it coming - 

have been walking backwards since.

Now I tempt the gods - daring them

by holding long metal rods

on mountaintops in lightning storms.

How can they make me walk

anymore backwards?

“You wanna piece of this?! 

You want this?!

You can have it!”

But they scoff at the idea.

After all, of what use 

is a moon-walking, sombrero-wearing

heyoka searching for 

the Plumed Serpent? 

Still,

I remain.