by Ray González
The Milky Way was crossed by a streaking
satellite on its path beyond Ursa Major, the
galaxy above the cemetery at CLoride, where
graves hold families killed by Apaches in the
Gila, the great Andromeda constellation Kenneth
Rexroth worshipped vanishing beyond the
mountains above the mining town.
The last time I climbed here, Mr. Clarke was
ninety-eight years old, toothless and proud, the
last survivor of a Cloride mining family, his
parents killed by a tribe, their bodies taken to
punish him for staying alive.
The cemetery protects its names as it releases
distant planets that are treeless as they go by in
sleep, names in the sky draping myths around
my intrusion, pines and salt cedars covering the
path.
There were clusters of stars Mr. Clarke couldn't
see when we Looked up and guessed. He
pointed at constellations that he said never Lie,
the old man wheezing to death three years
Later, becoming the light in space that falls in
the desert each time the stars are correctly
identified.
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