Tokyo jetlag evening walking
Out of my throat appears this chuckle
A true twentieth century sound
A little crazed and having no tonal centre

The echoes of this laugh fade for a long time
Snaking among those jumbled pedestrians
Following that struggling cedric taxicab
Sliding over the seeming infinity of white light and neon

With no warning, mind's eye winks like a lifespan
And opens again on memory flash of prairie Indian dancers
They're on a stage, all jigging motion and flare of bright feathers
Surrounded by white faces floating on a sea of mind
Hoop dancer struts in front drum and voices blend with endless rain

There's a time line something like vertical, like perpendicular
Cutting through figures shuffling on horizontal plane
Cutting through the survival pride of the dancers
Through the guilty, sentimental warmth of the crowd
Through to some essence common to us, to original man
To perhaps descendants numberless or few

Where it intersects the space at hand
This shaman with the hoops stands aligned
Like living magnetic needle between deep past and looming future
Butterfly pierced on each drum beat, wing beat
Thunder clap, storm front, static spark
Energy circle delineated by leaping limbs

First man last man dancing man man dancing
Hoops in hand trampled grass circle spreading
Voices flame above crazy coyote heartbeat drum

I see sunrise on the plains, big river at dusk
Perpetual pillar of dust on prairie rim
And always overhead those wings circling, turning

He's the earth, he's the egg, he's the eagle
Always circling always turning
Always comes back to the centre

Hoops whirling, now transparent feet
Touch down on anaconda streets
And on the next leap dissolve slowly into the moving lights

Rainbow steps, jerking universe, goodbye, man-in-time
And just beyond the clatter and cars
The last long notes of wild voices ring like Roland's horn