Mandaza Medicine Man

by Anna Ruiz

I picked the drum with the painted moon and stars,
the dragonfly,
long time friends
when I wore moccasins on my trail of tears
but today
I am a shadow of a jaguar woman
in the taught skin of the drum,

and the rhythm picks my bones
and the rhythm hides my eyes,

Mandaza speaks of dreaming
of ancestors, of aloneness
of a community of spirits alive
in the emptiness surrounding this
dark autumn night
in the faraway land
of Strongsville, Ohio
where the Clan of the Wounded Healer gather
there, in that Zimbabwe bonfire,
to give life to the ashes of Light,
to give thanks for all who have come before us,
who guide us with stories of how it was
before
we became dreamers.