Song for the Shell Shaker

                                                                               for LeAnne Howe

The stones in the hills outside Durant
                                                        are silent this evening,
But so are those
                          in the river near Nanih Waiya.
Tonight, even the wind is weary.

It's worn shoes press against the limbs of the cedars,
A wounded body
                            on a secret mattress.

Abandoned, invisible
                                the wind stopped
Believing in God long ago, or maybe
It was just yesterday, or
The moment before this poem.

Maybe it was the day when something passed
                                                                       between the woman
And the words she spoke,
A private understanding,
                                      like the silent nods of the blind,
Or an absence that blows
                                      through the winds themselves.

Or maybe, it was when the wind rose from its black bed,
Pushing the river rocks
                                      toward their memory of ocean
And the stones in the hills
                                      toward their premonitions of river--
Turning within as the spheres might turn,
a music of sediment drums
                                         and sticks of water--
To a place on the other side of the mounds
Where you stand,
                             waiting.

poem notes