from Buffalo Dreams

by Cheryl Martin

The Weaver

For a thousand years or more,
more than anyone can count
an old woman weaves.
Where the land of long grass
kisses the badlands,
the Maka Sicha,
where the prairie forgets itself
then melts,
there's a cave,
no Sioux has seen it.
No one can find it,
but we know it is.

She sits,
weaves,
wears rawhide
like people did
when we hunted buffalo
on foot with stones.

For a thousand years or more,
more than anyone can count,
an old woman weaves a strip
for her buffalo robe.
She works with dyed porcupine quills,
quills she flattens with her teeth.
Her work is delicate,
like people did
before glass beads
or Christians.
The dog beside her,
Shunka Sapa,
blacker than a young girl's hair,
nearly as tall as the old woman
watches her fasten each quill to the robe
as if his food depended on it.

For a thousand years or more,
more than anyone can count,
she churns her fire.
She stirs wojapi,
berry soup,
strong, red,
boiling in an earth pot
like people had
before the killing iron came.
When the woman turns her back,
stirs the pot,
the dog plucks out her quills.

For a thousand years or more
that dog has ruined her work.
If she ever reaches
the last stitch
of the last row
of her perfect design,
she ends time.