Aak’ei Tsin, Changing Trees

are a reminder that ayóó nineez / extremely tall / ayóó nineez

&           nizhoní / beautiful / nizhoní

things                         holó / exist / holó           in this world.

Inked             gáagii / crow / gáagii branches, drowned mutters,

throwing beaks in the air, the níłchi / wind / níłchi,

like fingers that pull & point at the     yá / sky / yá.

In shimasaní’s backyard a line of cedar tsin / trees / tsin drops leaves at our bare feet.

I’ve never climbed a      dził / mountain / dził

but I’ve rolled over         hills & hills & hills, / dah yisk’id & dah yisk’id & dah yisk’id,

crawling like my uncle’s ATV, over my masaní’s charred

awoo’ / teeth / awoo’.

“Yáadiláh! Don’t be all rowdy,” is what she’d say.

I’ve stepped over shimá’s palm fissures, cracks in the   tsé / rock / tsé   that

mold into foot holes & ledges for climbing,

down, down, down / yaago, yaago, yaago

into her nailbeds tucked away like sleeping            ałchini / children / ałchini.

Yishááł / I’ve walked / yishááł

on shizhé’é’s wet clay spine, the kind that

late        Bini’ant’ááts’ózí / August / Bini’ant’ááts’ózí

rains & September

Red Valley floods tore through, touching shinalí’s      chizh / wooden / chizh corral,

eaten & chewed between decades of        béégaashí / cow / béégaashí    jaws.

I’ve swam in shinalí’s             sin / songs / sin,

sang in           Diné kéji / Navajo / Diné kéji,      patting my back,

rocking me to sleep with an itchy woven blanket.

But I kept one     anáá’ / eye / anáá’     peeled.

Nimaasí / potato / nimaasí   skin eyelids & cubed spam breakfasts over fall

                                  shándíín / sunlight / shándíín spreading      shadows

like landscapes, their     bits’íís / bodies / bits’íís

          become wide arching tsin trucks.

                              Ádóó shímasaní

                              dóó shimá

                              dóó shizhé’é

                              dóó shinalí

                         are reminders that extremely strong and knowing beings

                                                            holó / exist / holó in this world,

                                                            alongside the changing

                                                                    aak’ei tsin / autumn tree.