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

God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 28: THE PLAYTHINGS OF CHILDREN
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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 PLAYTHINGS OF CHILDREN

The playthings of children....
they laugh and they pretend,
their voices are unconcerned and happy....
The fallen feathers of birds amuse them,——
even to the slightest touch
the caterpillar is very sensitive....
They amuse themselves, too,
with the round smooth object
which they roll over the ground, pretending....
There is a scar upon it,
where the knife struck
when the hair was torn away....
The playthings of children....
they talk unconcernedly,
they laugh, they pretend....