Change of Worlds
(Chief Seattle's speech to Isaac Stevens, Governor
of Washington Territory, 1854
..."there is no death, only a change of worlds.")
It is our turn, tangled in tendrils together
hair and grass alike, to be layers on this earth.
Around, above us, concentric circles of
insects,
revolving patterns of wind,
are
in the world's slow circle, turning.
Who
will first rise to go-know if to go is to rise
or...
be lowered to roots, felt under surface of skin.
We
have not seen the other side of the grass.
"Where
has she gone?" they will ask.
.........."She
was here
in
this circle with us on the earth
with
the grass stem's juice on her tongue."
She
is in the circling of the bee ..and in
the
circular current of wind-the same
and
not the same...as the wind of last September.
