who lived on amber.
Their dark hands
laced the shells of turtles
together, pebbles inside
and they danced
with rattles strong on their legs.
There is a dry river
between them and us.
Its banks divide up our land.
Its bed was the road
I walked to return.
We are plodding creatures
like the turtle,
born of an old people.
We are nearly stone
turning slow as the earth.
Our mountains are underground
they are so old.
This land is the house
we have always lived in.
The women,
their bones are holding up the earth.
The red tail of a hawk
cuts open the sky
and the sun
with the new grass.
Dust from yarrow
is in the air,
the yellow sun.
Insects are clicking again.
I came back to say good-bye
to the turtle
to those bones
to the shells locked together
on his back,
gold atoms dancing underground.