as a warning, and an offering:

a poison: medicine in small amounts.

Green mounds of feathered leaves

coil to cover ground, you are:

we-tsa oind-se eh-ko [𐓷𐓟𐓲𐓘 𐓫𐓰𐓮𐓟 𐓟𐓤𐓪]

snake and rattle together, like this:

Both the appetite and the alarm

My cousin breaks her toenail dancing–

red escapes like a river mouth into ocean.

I ask permission from you

to stop the bleeding–

Both the defense and the offense.

A year later you regenerate

seed yourself further south

As if to say, you can refuse to remain

where you’ve been planted.

Sometimes anthropologists have trouble

locating Osages in the historical record–

How many times we moved to a new country.

Always peace and war together, like this [𐓟𐓤𐓪]–

I learned it as a diversity of tactics.