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
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.
Laura Tohe
Laura Tohe is Sleepy-Rock People clan and born for the Bitter Water People clan. A poet and librettist, she is the author of Tseyí / Deep in the Rock (University of Arizona Press, 2005), which received the Arizona Book Association’s Glyph Award for Best Poetry and Best Book. She is Professor Emerita with Distinction at Arizona State University and the current poet laureate of the Navajo Nation.