Going With Dad to Check the Cattle

 

Going With Dad to Check the Cattle

Shí naash á / Shí naash á / Shí naash á, ladee h ó zh ǫ'ǫ' lá.

I slid across the bench seat
of Dad's stock pickup truck
My husband, still a young man, took
the wheel in leather work gloves

His father, the age that we are now,
sat next to me, his elbow
out the window

The pickup bumped along rough road
two well-worn tracks that split low brush
Dad surveyed his range and saw
the Glittering World

Silence reigns where breath is fraught
Horny Toad snares his checkered beetle

Hawk swoops

                                to take her lizard

Hot dirt cools in shade of
desert scrub—islands full of life

Night rain stirred sweet scent, red soil
The day mild and clear
Tsé Bit' a'í—the Rock with Wings—towered in near distance
Cattle grazed on ricegrass, sage, and wildflowers
in calm of settled eagle

Pickup bumped along
Dad sang soft in cadence
Héí yé yong gah / Héí yé yong gah / Néíyó, néíyó, néíyó, néíyó—ha néíyong gha

Dad's cattle see him and stand watching, then calling,
then walking forward to greet him
—Dad knows each one by their face

Shiprock looms, warm light
on smooth stone, same hue as my husband's face
barely touched by sun
Purple shadows, same as his father's

deep melanin blessed by Yádiłhił Shitáá

Lovely Earth—Nahasdzáán Shimá
bore her children in reflections of herself

hózhó náhásdlíí'

hózhó náhásdlíí'

hózhó náhásdlíí'

hózhó náhásdlíí'