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God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore cover

God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 22: THE EAGLE, ALSO, DIES
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About This Book

A sequence of poems evokes dawn through dusk, prairie winds and dust, ritual dances and spirit songs, and mythic reckonings framed as a red apocalypse. Later cycles portray terraced Pueblo landscapes, potters, corn maidens, and ruined pueblos, while final pieces invoke Aztec gods and cosmology. The language is lyrical and imagistic, alternating intimate observation of natural life with ceremonially inflected reflections on death, renewal, and the drumlike rhythms of the earth.

THE EAGLE, ALSO, DIES

With his hooked beak,
With his hooked talons,
With battle-plumes outspread,——
His beak is a driven lance-head;
His talons are scarlet arrows,
His voice is a war-cry!
When he circles the sky
The birds suddenly cease their singing,
The rabbit becomes rigid.
“The hurricane is my horse,
“The black tornado is my charger,
“Earth trembles where I strike!”
Wherefore do you fear, O Warrior?
For the strongest there is a Fate:
The Eagle, also, dies.