First Steps on a New Path

We four women, old friends and new,

drove to the Castle in Spring sunshine.

‘You are a Way Shower, aren’t you?’

said my newest friend, making me glad.

We stood in the smoke from a big pot

of burning eucalyptus leaves.

The Elders told us the true history

passed down through the grandmothers.

‘We came from the stars, but we were made

here, long ago, the first people.

‘This land is far more ancient than you know

because you have been told lies.’

The custodian of the land we stood on

declared us adopted.

Now we too have responsibilities
to the land and to the truth.

We all closed our eyes while Priscilla sang
the Song of the Beginning.

31 Poems in 31 Days (from Poewar / Writer's Resource Center). Prompt: syllabic verse.  Each verse of this poem is a 17-syllable 'American sentence' (a form devised by Allen Ginsberg) divided into two lines. I am also trying for something I call 'ghazal-type' in that it's somewhat discontinuous, with gaps in the narrative, like a ghazal (indeed a quasi-ghazal). Hence this is my 'ghazal-type 17-2' invention. (I already invented 'ghazal-type 17-3' — and yes, I know it's a cumbersome label, but at least it gives some indication of what it purports to describe.)