Ofelia Zepeda Poems

Question: Can you tell us about what he is wearing?
Well, the hooves represent the deer's hooves,
the red scarf represents the flowers from which he ate,
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She always got mad at him
every time he came home in the middle of the morning
with his pant legs wet.
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Every day it is the same.
He comes home.
He tells her about it.
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Cuk Son is a story.
Tucson is a linguistic alternative.
The story is in the many languages
still heard in this place of
Black Mountains.
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The scent of burning wood holds
the strongest memory.
Mesquite, cedar, piñon, juniper,
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She said she felt the earth move again.
I never knew whether she meant she felt a tremor
or whether it was the rotation of the earth.
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Food is put in place for the ancestors.
Prayer sticks are buried for the saguaro, for the season, for the earth.
Songs are sung for the spiritual health of everyone, everything.
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Someone said it is going to rain.
I think it is not so.
Because I have not yet felt the earth and the way it holds still
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Ñ-ku'ibadkaj ‘ant ‘an ols g cewagi.
With my harvesting stick I will hook the clouds.
‘Ant o'i-waññ'io k o ‘i-hudiñ g cewagi.
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E-atki ‘ep ‘ai mat o ‘e-keihi go'odham
o ‘e-keihi kut hab masma ab o ‘i ha-miabi g ju:ki
‘apt ge cuhug oidk o ka:d mat hab o kaijjid:
...