definitions provided by the Navajo–English Dictionary by Leon Wall & William Morgan
dibé bighan: sheep corral
juniper beams caught charcoal in the late summer morning
night still pooled in hoof prints; deer panicked run from water
ooljéé’ biná’adinídíín: moonlight
perched above the town drowned in orange and streetlamp
the road back home dips with the earth
shines black in the sirens
bit’a’ : its sails or—its wing (s)
driving through the mountain pass
dólii, mountain bluebird, swings out—
from swollen branches
I never see those anymore, someone says
diyóół : wind (
wind (more of it) more wind as in (to come up)
plastic bags driftwood the fence line
nihootsoii
: evening—somewhere northward fire
twists around the shrublands;
sky dipped in smoke—twilight
—there is a word for this,
someone says
: deidííłid, they burned it
: kódeiilyaa, we did this
Copyright © 2021 by Jake Skeets. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 13, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.