Remaking Chant

for the Cherokee

I am clean and dancing.Today, the first in a lifetime,I leave a rattlesnake's voicein the rocks, I frighten no one.

But I still have fangs,poisonous or not, and an urgeto feel the warm ball of a field mousedissolving inside me

the vibrations of rain drummingacross dry hills, the stretch of moistsunlight along my body.I will coil into a short nap,

consider this spirit I am leaving,and maybe then I can abandon my brothers.