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

God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 25: EACH TIME I BEHOLD HER
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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.

EACH TIME I BEHOLD HER

Each time I behold her again I am lost in wonder....
Is her beauty but for a season, like that of the rose?
Are we men but as the drunken butterflies?
A hundred comely women are in her eyes,
Where she stands in the midst of life....
She is the daughter of many tribes,
She is the mother of many tribes....
Of what use to me are eyes?
Ears only I need——
For her voice I am listening.