Change of Worlds taken from: WATER PLANET

published by: Gateway Arts

© Mary Rudge 1986

MARY RUDGE

Change of Worlds

(Chief Seattle's speech to Isaac Stevens, Governor of Washington Territory, 1854

..."there is no death, only a change of worlds.")

It is our turn, tangled in tendrils together,

hair and grass alike, to be layers on this earth.

Around, above us, concentric circles of

insects, revolving patterns of wind,

are in the world's slow circle, turning.

Who will first rise to go-know if to go is to rise

or... be lowered to roots, felt under surface of skin.

We have not seen the other side of the grass.

"Where has she gone?" they will ask.

.........."She was here

in this circle with us on the earth

with the grass stem's juice on her tongue."

She is in the circling of the bee ..and in

the circular current of wind-the same

and not the same...as the wind of last September.