4 is a sacred number
I wish you could remember the raw wet breath of the forest-
the afterbirth
of the city’s
stench licked clean
slick
gold-umbrella pines
burls bulging
eyes watching guardian trees
walking in strange dreams
spirits not souls traveling
knowledge is preceded by the mist
c̓əlaqayac lushootseed know
powder soft rain and fog-
Sitka spruce looming
giants
eternally
drunk on the sea
beware the treacherous
memory
blood-curdling screams Ayo Hawk
circles
Evergreens chanting peace
to honey mycelium dirt
lamenting
the loss of Sequoia
felled
for
matchsticks
and paper
towering
embers of Earth
living and lasting evidence
of Creator.
2.
white-headed Eagle wing bones become flute sacred music for the medicine man enchanting
fish plants animals birds
zoonatic disease abated-healing occurs
but
without medicine people
the warriors leave it alone
patrol the shore
cliffs echo the
defeat ghosts
of
chinook ehkoli stories
gray whale moaning from the sea floor
3.
they came alive
in the painting
I left outside
salt rain taps
the tent
I follow them
sit under the tall skin tarped
strung out in trees
warm by the fire
I stare into sleep
see
a bird woman cloaked
two legs running
infant protected
weight of wind Sacred a cliff carving our names into everything.
4.
a spider kiss for my baby’s cheek
I feed her
pink meat crushed on stone
abalone suckle she is chubby
happy at home
strong threads attached to the substrate
I crawl over
the others who war
colonized the vents in
deep ocean floor
Creeks categorized
as a subclass
Mvskoke
bivalves beat differently
despite superficial similarities in appearance
We clump together on wave washed rocks
those left who haven’t been picked off by white birds or
changing tides
the habit helped keep us together
in clans
we could withstand the force of the pounding surf
from our infancy we knew our worth
now so few really can say who they sit with anymore.
burrowing in sea marsh sand hiding in plain sight on the same shore we knew before before before