the sandhills::colinas de arenas
The sandhills
The language of cranes
we once were told
is the wind. The wind
is their method,
their current, the translated story
of life they write across the sky.
Millions of years
they have blown here
on ancestral longing,
their wings of wide arrival,
necks long, legs stretched out
above strands of earth
where they arrive
with the shine of water,
stories, interminable
language of exchanges
descended from the sky
and then they stand,
earth made only of crane
from bank to bank of the river
as far as you can see
the ancient story made new.
Sing: poetry from Indigenous America
Edited by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, The Univ. of Arizona Press, USA (2011)
Colinas de arena
El lenguaje de las grullas
nos dijeron una vez
es el viento. El viento
es su método,
su corriente, la historia traducida
de la vida que escriben en el cielo.
Millones de años
han volado aquí
el anhelo ancestral,
sus alas de llegada amplia,
cuello largo, las piernas estiradas
sobre hebras de la tierra
donde llegan
con el brillo del agua,
historias, interminable
lenguaje de intercambios
descendiendo del cielo
y luego se detienen,
tierra hecha sólo de grullas
de orilla a orilla del río
por lo que se puede ver
la antigua historia hecha nuevamente.
Sing: poetry from Indigenous America
Edited by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, The Univ. of Arizona Press, USA (2011)
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