totems

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is apanther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart chargedby four winds of four directions.The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspokentears of a few hundred human years, storms that will breakwhat has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch afew miles away.He hears the death song of his approaching

The Indians did not like to see anything odd -- a white squirrel, for instance. . . . They thought such oddities were messages, were omens of evil. . . . And the Indians put a great deal of faith in dreams.