Female Rain

Female Rain

           Dancing from the south

                 cloudy cool and gray

                      pregnant with rainchild

 

At dawn she gives birth to a gentle mist

flowers bow with wet sustenance

                   luminescence all around

 


 

Níłtsą́ Bi’áád

 

Níłtsą́ bi’áád

             Shá’di’ááhdę́ę’go dah naaldogo’ alzhish

                     k’ós hazlį́į́’

                          honeezk’ází

                              níltsą́ bi’áád bitázhool bijooltsą́

                                  áádóó níłtsą́ bi’áád biyázhí bídii’na’

 

Naaniiniiłkaahgo

            níłtsą́ bi’áád biyázhí hazlį́į́’

                   ch’íl látah hózhóón dahtoo’bee ’ałch’į’ háazhah

                        áádóó nihik’inizdidláád

Credit

From Songs from This Earth on Turtle’s Back: Contemporary American Indian Poetry (Greenfield Review Press, 1983). Copyright © 1983 by Laura Tohe. Used with permission of the author.