Perhaps it’s leaf shadows
sleeping on your sandy substrate
that scatter my thoughts
like sunlight filtered through
a canopy of cottonwoods
I’ve witnessed you change;
watched a bank wall of white sand fall
grain by grain,
into the crystal clear pool
holding your history.
My question has always been
what mysteries do you release
into the flowing water
meandering on its journey
to the big river.
Do you reveal that you waltzed
with a thousand black-wing damselflies,
who buzzed with the music of life?
I think not.
I think you weave your secrets
within the deadfall and leaf scatter
strewn along your banks,
and leave me here to guess
about the ecology locked
below the sound of riffles
running over rocks.
A burst of wind
whips willow leaves into flight,
a growl of thunder rolls in
from the south.
I am awakened
to find damselfly wings silent;
riffles and runs now dry.
A season of change arrived.
—
Yvette Wiley is one of the Tribal Liaisons with the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center. She has been published in the literary journals: The Externalist, The New York Times Review, and Touch: The Journal of Healing. Yvette is a Muscogee citizen and Ecovlke Clan (Deer Clan). She lives with 8 cats and 2 dogs within her Tribe’s reservation/boundaries in the city of Tulsa, OK.
