while the sun is low in the evening sky

I cut these cattails

while the white egret stands as though carved

over her rippling image

as I cut these cattails the wind drowns

their small cries, calling out to me from my own skin

this is what I say:

I cut you to put you into our home

so that our lives

may aspire to your simple form

one or two

so that we may learn to live

with the patience of reeds

so that we may learn to live as you grow

along the shoreline, food for birds

medicine for people

inhabit that fringe between water

and the tough blackberries and willow trees

I cut you cattails

to carry your spirit into our home

so that we may enkindle it

in our own lives, and so live to protect

all your kind: we become you

we become you

and the wind rustling your flat leaves is the turning

of the dead and the unborn

in my own hand that holds the knife steadily

and I pray you find my heart in accord

with my hand, and my tongue

living within what I see

with these hopes I cut your stem

and acknowledge the tear

and the absence of the tear in my own stomach