"The Ballad of Kokopelli"

A strange lonely figure stares out of the past

where engraved by an artist in stone

Held firm by the sand in which he is cast,

these last thousand years quite alone.

Could he be listening, trying to hear

moccasins scuffing the butte?

Bringing the people once again near

to hear Kokopelli sweet flute?

His image inscribed on a thousand rock faces

from east to the great western sea;

From Sonora's hot sun to the north glaciers bases,

proclaiming this loved tutelary.

Though powers possessed and methods employed

are often in open dispute;

One thing is agreed, the people did love

to hear Kokopelli sweet flute.

This stick figure man, with a hump on his back

seemed always to cast a good feeling;

His magic perhaps, taken out of his pack

would comfort the sick and do healing.

Whatever his talents, they surely were grand,

a fact no one cares to refute,

As people would come from afar in the land,

to hear Kokopelli sweet flute.

~Glenn Welker, Indigenous Peoples' Literature