Going

November 11, 2011

Native American Heritage Month

As the fall morning sun crests the southeastern slope of the ridge and begins today’s journey across frosty landscape, I wonder.  I wonder, where are we going today?  We—the people, who have known war and who have not, who have walked our land and who have not, who have loved and who have not, who have hunted and fished and who have not, who have flown and visioned and who have not, who have listened and who have not, who have told stories and who have not, who have touched a plant with awareness and who have not, who have put up with a dog licking their face or a cat in their lap on a cold winter morning or a steer nudging them when feeding or a deer crossing the fence  looking them in eye then bound over sage and into the drainage and who have not, who have heard the spirit and who have not, have a moment between sunrise and sunset and I wonder where are we going today?

Birdfoot’s Grampa

The old man
must have stopped our car
two dozen times to climb out
and gather into his hands
the small toads blinded
by our lights and leaping,
live drops of rain.

The rain was falling,
a mist about his white hair
and I kept saying
you can’t same them all,
we’ve got places to go.

But, leathery hands full
of wet brown life,
knee deep in the summer
roadside grass,
he just smiled and said
they have places to go to
too.

Joseph Bruchac