the symbolic importance Native Americans place on the parts of body.

Here, a highway accident has left an owl dead in the road. The poem

became a way for me to honor and exorcise my sorrow. In my research,

for example, I found Native legends that incorporated the tail and breast

feathers; I learned that mythic characters took on owl qualities. Finally,

I found consolation in these stories.

Something to Consider: If you were to research the beliefs, material

culture and symbols of a religious or social tradition other than your own,

what might it be? To what other cultures are you drawn and why?

Death of the Owl

She said someone will come for the wings and snap them off, whole.

Someone for the claw, foot of a prayerstick. Someone will come for the eyes,

like the woman from Cochiti Pueblo who replaced her own with the raptor's .

Every part will be used: the short tail feathers

that cover the arms and torso of Owl Boy taken from his parents

and changed into a bird. Nothing is wasted.

No time to stop, I said. Right behind you, she replied, someone

who needed the feathers of the breast to place beside the restless child

and induce sleep. Someone who needed the undertail

feathers for a good peach crop. I saw the wings lift,

heard the head crack, no time to swerve----

the bird hunched in the highway drawn by something dead in the road----

before she hurtled into metal. A shaman who required the feathers

for her hair was coming to gain power over illness,

and someone claimed the remains of the Burrowing Old who lives in the underworld

and speaks with the dead. Someone who wanted an audience

with the Bringer of Omens, the Priestess of Prairie Dogs,

was coming, she said, right behind you.