Red Willow People

 My daughter is sleeping beneath a blanket 

woven with green, 

the color of female sage in winter,

cut loose from the land in the time of snow, 

forgetful of its purpose. 

In the sky a winter moon is leaking her eggs 

into the universe, into the mind 

of the Southwest, that lonely nature, her body 

radiant with sun. 

My daughter is sleeping in the casita 

beneath blankets the color of sage in winter.

She is dreaming a long road, a curving roundness 

that stretches out into an alphabet part earth, part water. 

There is a woman on the road with her face. 

There are many grandmothers.

 
She is dreaming the shape of birds into her body.

 
This is her life, entering her, filled with the color green, 

and birds fashioned after wind.