CAMPFIRES ON THE DESERT


There's smoke along Mt Signal

Have the Kumeyaay come home

To spend the winter along the Yuha

In the Valley among their own?



Could that smoke be from their camp fires

Where they speak their native tongue?

Do they still sit 'round the fire

And teach lessons to the young?



There's smoke below Mt Signal

Could it be a tribal band?

Are the songs carried on the night wind

Of people returning to their land?



Do I hear voices in the distance?

I must hurry out to see.

They are calling from the desert

Yes, they're calling out to me.



They're preparing for my arrival.

I know they're waiting there for me.

And I have so many things to ask them

As I'm sure they do of me.



And as night falls upon the desert

Across fifty miles or more.

The campfires begin to flicker

Along old Lake Cahuilla's shore.



But as I speed up among the washes

It isn't campfires in my view.

But headlights on the highway

Of another people passing thru.



©1994 Stacy Vellas 1/30/94