When we’re young, we think we are the only species worth knowing. But the more I come to know people, the better I like ravens.
? Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
sun bursts on sod
clod like desert offering
solitary figure in the grass
bending to sweet grass
blood milkwort
beardtongue kiss me quick
hallowed grounds – Osage
Pawnee Otoe
dog soldiers Kiowa
Cheyenne Sioux
you find quilts of relatives
this Kansas like a stone blasted
from heaven, you touch beads
DNA now in digital form
some tendril of sage root
possible lineage, you gather
memory, narratives, clans and families
silver tones in photographic renderings
we see and touch together
two languages burnt by memories
far and wide touchstones separated
derived of different gravitational
pulls, yet a bond, gentle
ripples of conjoined memory
pull us into yokes of rivers converged
moons now tied to Sitka and Fir
drainages fleeting into Columbia
acrid tastes from cedar seepage
invasive species like French broom
enchanting on slopes draining
Mount Hood mists
you float in cavalcades of dreams
some beginning like a knife to souls
finding brittle bones, flecks of spearheads
travois of your keepings, offerings
to a time quickly vanishing
into muddy modern worlds
of timetables, blips, beeps
Lakota drum is painted with families
coda, inside a tether of deer ligament
across the skin, sealed particles
of strength, thimble and coyote tooth
blue silk ribbon, cowrie shell
one day you will uncover
these people’s codes
listen to the south wind
dredging Mount Sunflower
highest peak in Kansas