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EKUTSIHIMMIYO
(eh-coot-see-heem-mee-yo)
The July moon has waxed and waned above the Great Plains;
the earth has tilted gently on her axis,
permitting the brief proximity
of the two great celestial systems, North and South,
and the night is a splendor of stars that brim
the arc of darkness,
constellations jostling one another
in three-dimensional space.
The Milky Way is a blaze of misty white
sprawling from one side of the heavens to the other.
The two watchers, Cheyenne grandfather and grandson,
friends and equals in the tradition
of the Tsitsistas, “The People,”
gaze upward.
It is very late, the cooking fires have long been embers,
the camp is sleeping, and even the dogs
do not bark.
The old man, with his lined, noble face,
greying hair bound in doeskin throngs and rabbit fur,
three sacred eagle feathers thrust through his braids
gently draws the little boy to his side
and gestures toward the great, creamy spill
of the Via Lactea.
“That is ekutsihimmiyo, the Hanging Road,
that leads to the Hereafter of the Cheyenne,”
the old man tells his grandson.
“When Cheyennes die, their souls walk the Hanging Road
suspended between Blue Sky Space and Earth
that the Wise One Above may welcome them
to the beauty of the Afterlife.”
Two hundred years later
I saw those same stars
above he Grand Canyon of the Colorado,
and I recalled the legend of the Hanging Road.
The Milky Way does not cross our Texas skies
with such brilliant clarity
nor had I ever imagined the magnificence
of those other, Western skies
at this special time of the year –
until that one cloudless night
when I drew my young Argentine granddaughter
close to my side
as we both gazed, awestruck, at the heavens,
and I told her the wonderful story
of ekutsihimmiyo.
Sue Littleton has been writing for 50 years. Her experiences come from a sheep ranch in West Texas to the sophisticated capital of Argentina,
and from 18 years in Buenos Aires to Austin,Texas.
A college education is a wonderful thing. She graduated at age 57. Her poetry returned to her with intense joy and a range unknown before
the mind-dazzling experiences of undergraduate studies.
Email: Sue Littleton
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