Hymns for Hosh
I.
I walk down to the sinuous Sonoran
Full of sinful thoughts
And a sublime soul
A pond of oil glistens in the sun
sits like melted butter on graham cracker crust
after a day of monsoon musings
water on sand sends goosebumps through the land
For hills and valley’s
Covered in phallic philosophies
Firing out your throat
In the pearl of morning
The heat spins me naked
Sinful and sublime
I search for your rain house
II.
noise nectars an intrinsic ripple
desert honey pulsates
sticking to the sky
Spreading a frequency
III.
//When he listens closely//
//an electric orchestra buzzes fruitfully//
I wonder if he hears my own
ballad buzz
with each poem painted
on my tongue
My song is heard
& my ancestors sing
They can't help but take notice
They tap a toe
drum a finger or two
with a half-smile
splashed across their face
the scale of my chorus heightens
when my Diné cheeks redden like a prickly pear, sliced into halves
sweet and unstrained
my hum is heard
when I'm
in solitude, washing dishes, in my apartment
thoughts only
smiling down with soapy silverware and
sponge in hand
scrubbing, rinsing, repeating
My hums crash into one another
like porcelain on steel
When I drive home after work, on the 10
the sinuous saxophone solos vibrate on the freeway's overpass
& sade sings to the sun
this sleepy star drifts behind Muhaḍagĭ Doʼag, South Mountain
musings hover above, a lilac amber horizon
into honey lavender clouds they shift
The sweetness of the sky flashes in and out of the clouds
Ember strokes lift and light up the horizon
Oh, sonorous Sonoran!
hues sinuate through the electric horizon
my follicle aches
& I swallow the nectar of its sunset
with each golden drop, I am released
IV.
In the hollow hums of circular silence
I hear his fluttering smile
greet me from across the room
his lips plump into the blush of cactus flowers
when he stands next to me
the red beet in my chest wants to collapse
into itself like a fussy sinkhole
In the baritone of his body’s chorus
I hear the tenderness in his silences
and awakened flesh in ripe syllables
Hibiscus hues embarrass my smile
& stream into my belly
My belly is flushed for the deserts' sweet honey
His golden knowledge sparks and sticks to me
like bursts of spit in a fit of laughter
Something grows
and something lets go
calm and continuous
like a wave
A tune begins again &
our song swells until
the levees our fervors break,
soaked into parched pastorals
The sands of our skin melt into each other
like roasted velvet mesquite created by the hands & stones
of his people, desert folk,
my Ha:sañ
Shíhosh
In the sensuous sand
his spine stands strong
playing song after song
with each hearty hum
the nectar of our throats sweetens the scrapes of our sorrows
Shí beloved
*Shí: First-person singular possessive pronoun my, mine
Shí beloved moves
with caution into a forest of billowy bark
this new-found Plateau intrigues him as he side steps, wispy with thirst, fruition and vigilance.
Juniper’s twisted branches arouse him his palms cup the curves and bends of the silver splintered bark cloudy lines curl into its cortex creating tangles for his eyes only like a fine-tooth comb, he detangles what he can and falls to his knees.
Shí beloved gulps
the asdzáá air around him puffed mesas sink into cinnamon sand
& popping junipers dance upon the rounded peaks.
Shí beloved spreads
his fingers wider than the mesa he stands on and savors the orange desert pulp with each breathe in. Juniper’s branches spread wildly and whistle in the untamed wind
shi beloved’s ear’s rise
with curious blood
Shí beloved dreams
with tension, uncertain with the sensation serenading in his gut, falsetto's grip his throat in pollenating bursts shí beloved does not understand this stamen tucked under his tongue, indigo berries flood his mind night after night, juniper ash fills his bones and the soot of bark, flurry with each sheepish step
Shí beloved thinks
alone with these knots in his thoughts on his own tangled path, his steps curl into circles
This silver arch of Juniper is dancing to be seen and these berries are waiting to be squeezed
Shí beloved climbs
countless mesas for this whimsy tree till his convictions rub his soles into bone, stepping tiredly on the salmon colored rocks
Until his eyes see the trunk of the whirled wood peeking out of a coral canyon wall, it does not scream to be fixed. rather adored for its odd foundation
His prudence beams into the color of wild lavender azure clouds levitate and dissipate into the winds transport. Shí beloved’s juniper thoughts rush like water into the fine sand
Shí beloved dances
with the trees, taking him further from anything he’s ever known
like a tree without bark
—————
Amber McCrary is Diné poet, zinester, feminist and artist. She is Red House born for Mexican people. She released a chapbook titled, Electric Deserts! (Tolsun Books). She currently resides on Akimel O’odham lands. McCrary is also the owner and founder of Abalone Mountain Press, a press dedicated to publishing Indigenous voices. She is a board member of the Northern Arizona Book Festival. She is the AZ Humanities 2022 Rising Star of the year and a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation LIFT awardee. You can find her poems, interviews, and art at Yellow Medicine Review, POETRY Magazine, Room Magazine, Poets and Writers Magazine, and The Navajo Times.