MEN IN NEW MEXICO
Mountains blanket-wrapped
Round a white hearth of desert—
While the sun goes round
And round and round the desert,
The mountains never get up and walk about.
They can’t, they can’t wake.
They camped and went to sleep
In the last twilight
Of Indian gods;
And they can’t wake.
Indians dance and run and stamp—
No good.
White men make gold-mines and the mountains unmake them
In their sleep.
The Indians laugh in their sleep
From fear,
Like a man when he sleeps and his sleep is over, and he can’t wake up,
And he lies like a log and screams and his scream is silent
Because his body can’t wake up;
So he laughs from fear, pure fear, in the grip of the sleep.
A dark membrane over the will, holding a man down
Even when the mind has flickered awake;
A membrane of sleep, like a black blanket.
We walk in our sleep, in this land,
Somnambulist wide-eyed afraid.
We scream for someone to wake us
And our scream is soundless in the paralysis of sleep,
And we know it.
The Penitentes lash themselves till they run with blood
In their efforts to come awake for one moment;
To tear the membrane of this sleep ...
No good.