Robert M. Chute
excerpt from Bending Reed's Story:
Those Times
Ice crept north again
faster than it came, leaving the rocky ground
bare, feeding lakes its clear, cold blood,
bleeding rivers that rolled and rubbed
the stones, sorting them
like a child with pebbles on the shore.
Ice crept north to spend summers
under the white owl's wing
while the sun's hand, the sun's breath
warmed the cold land.
Seeds came: soft white spiders
on the south wind. Sprouts, green quills
rose at the water's edge in the soft curve
of the river's arm. Soon the tattered leaves
of past years shivered between
new green generations
and behind these, between darkness
and light, The People.
Ghosts of the old ones now
when we look back to those times
when everything knew its name.
When we all walked together.
When the Cattail People
learned their songs.
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