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gathering rites
the women gathered
	from Cape Fox to Xingu to mid-points of mystery changing history in unnoticed ways, in unrecorded parts of red Mother Earth timing their ceremonies to Grandmother Moon, setting places for Creation’s faces:
		Corn Woman, Pipe Woman, Buffalo-Calf Woman, Morning Star Woman Spirit Bird Woman and the Old Stone Woman whose wrinkles are canyons
the women gathered
	berries, roots, fruits of the season, bypassing the poison, the bitter, the green digging snake root and ironwood for good sweats and sleep wild onions, just tender for healing and feasting clouds and smoke and moonlight and sunrays and sighs and death rattles and baby’s breath and woman’s sage, just the color of dawn sharp-eyed, strong-armed, dirt under nails work
the women gathered
	poles and nets and wetweeds for fishing, jumping salmon over salmon, struggling upstream running the short run against the tide, with hemp and seaweed and soft rope, no hooks hard work of holding and clubbing and landing the long walk back to the river’s mouth, longer and slower when empty-handed professional women’s work, this hunting and fishing
the women gathered
	’round graves in the ground, ’neath the trees, near the water dancing in circles describing their grief wailing, remembering, laughing and singing songs of the first and finest deeds songs of condolence and duty and life songs of forgive me, I want to live songs so sweet that the rocks shake and weep songs so strong they are buried, forgotten
the women gathered
	to weave a rug, a roof, a hammock, a blanket spiderwomen spinning memories and visions with wool and wise words and the sexiest of stories explosions of patterns and local color for regal occasions, some for the tourists birch bark for baskets and sweet grass and ash and bad-tasting berries for hang-downs and paints and horse hair and cat tails and mourners’ braids and eagle-bone whistles and porcupine quills and tiger’s teeth and red driftwood cedar, with secret sea faces and feathers and fluffs and sashes and leggings for dancing, for praying, for praising, for giving
the women gathered
	much from hushed conversations, in corridors of power where their presence was strange constrained responses to open questions answered more than answers would say they gathered news from the radio, from gun shots, from screams stories from headlines and frontlines, between and behind lines they gathered the children and sisters and mothers their faces told more than they meant to reveal
the women gathered
	women gathered men gathered children gathered mothers gathered fathers
		gathered pasts gathered futures gathered strength gathered women gathered time in a bundle and hurled it at the sun
	and the sun rained time for the women to gather together, time after time

				--suzan shown harjo

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© Suzan Shown Harjo. Do not circulate or distribute without permission.