“Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”

No, when they went, we said goodbye.

 

But why do we break through into love
to be instantly and constantly forsaken?
Is it a mere failure of perception
that makes the whole seem broken?

 

No, when I go, goodbye, I’m gone.

 

But still sometimes it seems like
the Grandmother Dance at the powwow,
the circling, the singing, and the endless drumming,
the intent faces passing, coming past, coming round.