Spirit of the Navajo (Pantoum)

Spirit of the Navajo
How hard life has become
Reciting prayers of long ago
Alcohol an escape for some

How hard life has become
Water is a scarcity
Alcohol an escape for some
Look at them with pity

Water is a scarcity
Wells will soon run dry
Look at them with pity
How could one not cry

Wells will soon run dry
Land stolen, left alone
How could one not cry
True intentions shone

Land stolen, left alone
Reciting prayers of long ago
True intentions shone
Spirit of the Navajo

Pantoum
The pantoum consists of a series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines
of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a
new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. The first line of the series recurs as the last line of the closing
quatrain, and third line of the poem recurs as the second line of the closing quatrain, rhyming ZAZA.

The design is simple:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8

Continue with as many stanzas as you wish, but the ending stanzathen repeats the second and
fourth lines of the previous stanza (as its first and third lines), and also repeats the third line of
the first stanza, as its second line, and the first line of the first stanza as its fourth. So the first
line of the poem is also the last.

Last stanza:

Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza