Rader: I was thinking of an individualized personalized moment, in the present, which is the case during an American Indian ritual. Iit's something that is happening in the moment, but the ritual...calls up everything that has happened in the past, so I wanted the poem not to have the same momentum and energy as the ritual, but i wanted the structure and movement to mirror the ritual. By the end of the poem it's winds plural and there are many voices that finally wind back to the singular, to the singular person waiting.

I want the reader to feel swept into the poem.