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is that the soldiers shall not pursue us
in our own country. We can live on game
as we have lived before. We do not desire to have
anything to do with the government, but we give these women
to you, and if you can do anything for us afterwards, all right."
9
song for the captive women
They are of those
who are without "power"
who live among events
necessarily,
to whom the events are as real
as they are themselves
they are of those
who have times of being perfectly clear-eyed
over the years, watching the willful --
one may as well observe,
here one is (no prompting
to self-importances or big ideas)
they are of those
on whom events can leave
a clear imprint
fi ne white sand lapped by ripples
at a stream's edge where a coyote
came and drank, here are impressions
of the fi ve pads, grainy-surfaced, petal-shaped, on each paw,
of each smooth blunt toenail, one of them split at the tip,
and see, of the sparse, thick hairs growing between the pads.