Memory hasn't a chord of what the family has lost.
For centuries village ancestors potlached salmon's
return so we could dance on the water like bugs.
Today the stones quit asking not to betray
their ceremonies, our ears deaf to their winter
story of mountain, river, cormorant, red-flowering
currant. Our car tracks trample their children
who vanish down the street like moonlight
into gutters, our abbreviated hours.
Topaz stones brought us dream circles in order
to never forget where the earth's heart cracked,
our shadows became ant fodder; we laughed
like flies and drank the blood from mirrors.
Flint raised his arm to the hummingbird's
fragrances, healing our eyes, spiky as sea urchins.
We ground Flint to a machine that exploded
with roadkill floating in toxins.
From a cave, ancestor stones gave us the cells
of trout, madrona, butterfly, eagle and grizzly,
gave us our birth song born of the sea,
gave us eagle feathers for the sunrise dance.
We chose instead to shoot the spotted-owl
from its borderless clarity,
turn off life like a video, including ours.
-Duane Niatum
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