Walking in the Desert for 40 Years Without a Mirror (Sista Manna)

I sit and drum I yowl at the moon,
sometimes the sun,
and sometimes a cloud.
If the energy like sap rises.

I carry noxious weed and a
walking stick stained red
my hand's blood
caught on a jagged moonstone.

I shift words
and worlds with my vision,
laugh rarely but when I do
it's full blast like the rains
that fall in the Catskills.

Birds are my brothers,
trees my sisters and mothers,
and I've got my Daddy in heaven
who is leading me, dreaming me.

I drink in manna and dew,
food is foraged, skirts
in tatters, hair under cover for no one
but the Shechinah - my witness.

I sing for chills, thrills
and then pause to listen
to the silence that stalks
the night, letters forming.

Stumbling, walking in the desert
40 years of bringing up the end
with flocks of black sheep
and sacrificial kids.

My face cast in the shadows
of water in night's reflection,
mirror correcting memory beheld
and memory becoming illusion.