rattle

The tribal gods are rattling the skies.

The prophets of Mammon foretell the demise of the economy without a human sacrifice; the god of Fear extends the hours of the gun shop, weaves a fantasy-world of strength. Who do you worship? asks a famous preacher on the screen. Yes, who? Who, who? I ask myself.

In the woods, a pair of Owls talks through the night. In the morning, I step out the door and feel the nearness of some other Presence. I take the path to the pasture hoping it is the Deer returned with the soft-eyed Fawn whose legs have already grown long. Deer are the messengers of God, they always come when I am aching for comfort. I don’t know how to endure these days without longing to shed my skin and join the leaf litter, Fir needle, cast-off shell of a Hazelnut, lost feather, bird song, purr of Owl-conversation.

But up on the pasture, it is a trio of Coyotes who wait, panting hungry around the Duck house. Somewhere the gods laugh and the Owls hush. I can hear the Ducks locked inside their house, the morning shake of their feathers, the murmur of anticipation as they hear my footsteps, oblivious to what stalks them outside. Last week we lost the oldest of the flock, a black and white Drake, stubborn and mean. I thought he’d wandered off alone, ended his old age under the Junipers, but now I see I was wrong. The Coyotes and I regard each other and one takes off for the woods. The other two remain. I watch, afraid to move lest I send them running after their companion. The largest one and I lock eyes and I see she will break before I do; she is so full of knowing. She is a beautiful creature, golden and brown, her narrow face intelligent and wary. I grant her safe passage with a nod of my head and the two of them escape into the safety of the woods. Later, I will walk in the woods myself, our shared domain.

Rattle away gods of my past, I have forgotten how to fear you.

The next day, the Deer are waiting. How much more beautiful they are now, how patiently they come. They bend their tender necks to the grass. Their sentinel ears test the morning air.

Notes:

**The Chinook people, on whose land I now live, called the Coyote Talapus and saw him as a complicated figure, part trickster, part transformer. I found it interesting that in modern Coyote stories told by Oregon Indian communities “his chief function seems to be to satirize and "hold off" the encroachments of Anglo culture.”

**Joy Harjo’s poem, Grace.