Kachinas

I am eight watching
Peter Pan on TV having
Seen Mary Martin perform
The role at the Muny outdoor
Theatre in St. Louis and my Dad
And Mom are explaining to me how
If I wish hard enough Tinkerbelle
Will come back to life which I
Think much like Christian
Theology and later find
Among the Hopi and
Other Pueblo folk
Who believe the
Spirits of their
Ancestors
Appear
Each
December
If they believe
Hard enough and
Stay until June then
The rain having fallen
Return to the underworld
But children must never
Suspect that it is their
Own fathers uncles or
Brothers in Kachina
Masks who dance
In the darkness
Of the Kiva in
Their Pueblo
Or terrible
Things
May
Happen
To the child
Which is not
Too reassuring
As I had more doubts
And questions than faith
In trinitarian theology
Tinkerbelle and
Later in life in
Kachinas
Though
As I sit
Writing
This poem
The thought
Of Kachinas
Coincides with
The train rattling
The hangers in my
Roomette closet set
Up a harmonic jingling
Strangely melodious as
The dark night crowds my
Small space so I look up
At the sound and say
Aloud note taken
Then the music
Stops and I
Think my
Sisters
Will smile
At this event.
I still remember
The eerie melody from
The closet strangely
Melodious and not
Like the jangling
Of hangers I
Heard all
Last
Night.
Kachinas?
I am thinking
Of the Kachina
Masks I saw in the
Gila years ago white
Bird-like masks strange
But now I am reading
About them in my
Travel book on
Pueblo towns,
Just another
Coincidence.