We are clean for them now, as naked-clean as they are,
We go out for them now and we meet them with our hands.
Bullsnakes, rattlesnakes, whipsnakes, we compare
Our cleanness with their cleanness. The sun stands
Witness, the moon stands witness. The dawn joins
Their scales with our flesh, the evening quiets their rattles.
We can feel their tails soothing along our loins
Like the feathers on our fathers after battles.
For their fathers were our fathers. We are brothers
Born of the earth and brothers in the sun;
And our destiny is only one another's,
However apart the races we have run.
Out of the earth we came, the sons of kings;
For the daughters of serpent-kings had offered grace
To our fathers and had formed us under their wings
To be worthy of light at last, body and face.
Out of the earth we came, into this open
Largeness of light, into this world we see
Lifted and laid along, broken and slopen,
This world that heaves toward heaven eternally.
We have found them, we have brought them, and we know them
As kin of us, because our fathers said:
As we have always shown them, you must shown them
That kinship in the world is never dead.
Come then, O bullsnake, wake from your slow search
Across the desert. Here are your very kin.
Dart not away from us, whipsnake, but perch
Your head among your people moulded in
A greater shape yet touching the earth like you.
Leave off your rattling, rattlesnake, leave off
Your coiling, your venom. There is only dew
Under the starlight. Let our people cough
In the blowing sand and hide their faces, oh still
Receive them, know them, live with them in peace.
They want no rocks from you, none of your hill.
Uncoil again, lie on our arms, and cease
From the wars our fathers ceased from, be again
Close to your cousins, listen to our song.
Dance with us, kinsfolk, be with us as men
Descended from common ancestors, belong
To none but those who join yourselves and us.
Oh listen to the feathers that can weave
Only enchantment and to the words we sing,
The feet we touch the earth with. Help us believe
That our ancestors are still remembering.
Go back to them with sacred meal, go back
Down through the earth, oh be our messengers!
Tell them with reverence, tell them our lack;
Tell them we have no roots, but a sap that stirs
Forever unrooted upward to the sky.
But tell them also, tell them of our song
Downward from heaven, back where we belong.
Oh north, east, west and south, tell them we die!