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

God's drum, and other cycles from Indian lore

Chapter 7: THE WET GRASS OF MORNING
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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 WET GRASS OF MORNING

In the spring when I bathe my feet in the wet grass of morning,
I see many smiles upon the meadows....
There are drops of shining dew clinging to the blue harebells,
And the little white starflowers sparkle with dew, shining....
Old Woman Spider has beaded many beautiful patterns,
Spreading them where the Sun’s ray falls....
He also is smiling as he catches the red of the blackbird’s opening wing,
As he harkens to the mocking-bird inventing new songs....
I was an old man as I sat by the evening fire;
When I bathe my feet in the wet grass of morning I am young again.