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Then she went inland, they say,

taking her mats and all her belongings.

She walked up the bed of the creek,

and she settled there.

Later a trail was cut over top of her.

The traffic disturbed her, she said,

and she moved farther inland.

She sank to her buttocks, they say.

There, they say, she is one with the ground.

When her son takes his place,

she scatters flakes of snow for him.

Those are the feathers.

That is the end.

from The Way the Weather Chose to Be Born

Robert Bringhurst

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