Honor to those who came before us / Who knew that all is kin / Whose gods were rock as much as sky / Who danced in cyclical time
Where were you / the last time your animal eye / saw them running through the fields / grass stalks high, in the quivering night
Who were you then? / An amoeba, a starfish, a shooting star? / Antlered or hooved / your body, a primordial substance / Pooling in eroded rock, / brimming, spilling, running across
Did you feel a space / Between your skin and the sea / Encounter there your deities / Wet, webbed, feathered, scaled / Piled high in flocks / Swarming towards rivers, rocks / In many bodied consciousness / One by one / but none
Do you re-member / Your own / flying, fluttering, swarming through sky / Eyes on High / Honking calls, trailing, hailing / snows in fall / holding sounding calls
What were you then? / Wordless mouth against the earth / Burrowing, breathing, dreaming / What had not been broken yet / What had not been taken.
Torn, worn, sworn / What ground did your tears water? / Who was your kin? / Who are we / But if not of each other / All in bodied knowing / And in animal remembering