DYEING
With flower plants
and bark and roots
and minerals and water
and fire,
my mother changes
the colors of her yarns.
My mother puts the dye plants
into the dye kettle
over the fire.
Slowly the water
in the kettle
changes its color.
My mother puts white yarn
into this dye water.
She boils it over the fire.
She stirs it with a stick.
It bubbles and bubbles.
It gives a good smell
like plants after rain.
For a little time
my mother boils the yarn
in the dye water,
and then she takes it out again.
It is no longer white.
It has changed color.
In this way
my mother changes the colors
of her yarns
to look like
brown earth in morning
or yellow sand at mid-day.
She changes the colors
of her yarns
to look like
black cliffs at sunset,
or black like the night,
and black like the dark clouds
of male rain.
I help to gather the flowers
and the bark and the roots
and the minerals.
I help to carry the water
from the rain pool
by the red rocks.
I help to make the fire
with little twigs.
I look and look.
I see the water and the plants.
I see the yarn in the water
but I do not see
the magic
that I think
my mother must use
to change her yarns
to colors.
When I tell this
to my mother,
she laughs at me.
She says she has no magic
in her dye kettle.
She says the plants
in her dye kettle
are the things
which give colors
to her yarns.
So now,
I have learned a new thing.
