Manzanita

Before dawn the coyotes

	weave medicine songs

	dream nets – spirit baskets –

	milky way music

		they cook young girls with

		to be woman;

	or the whirling dance of

	striped boys –

At moon-set the pines are gold-purple

Just before sunrise.

The dog hastens into the undergrowth

Comes back panting

Huge, on the small dry flowers.

A woodpecker

Drums and echoes

Across the still meadow

One man draws, and releases      an arrow

Humming, flat,

Misses a gray stump, and splitting

A smooth red twisty manzanita bough.

Manzanita     the tips in fruit,

Clusters of hard green berries

The longer you look

The bigger they seem,

	`little apples'

Turtle Island