apache tears

Jason Hackett

The tears of Apache wives 

               wept deep into the mountainside,

Plenty enough to fill 

               the white boys’ tin buckets –

               plunk, plunk, plunk.

Hold a stone teardrop in your palm 

               and you never have to weep again,

It does all the weeping for you, 

               legend has it.

Real bones at the base of the cliff,

               warriors too proud to die indignantly, 

Now forgotten relics picked over

               in the afterlife, 

Unnamed gravestones of shadowy translucence 

               caught between eye and sun, 

Incur happiness in the innocence 

               of not knowing. 

The tears’ only inclusions, 

               mourning, imperfections 

Rock tumblers and history books 

               can easily spin a shine on – 

               plunk, plunk, plunk.