  IN AUTUMN | Page | | | Home Land | 3 | | | The Hogan | 4 | | | Night Corral | 5 | | | The Cornfield | 6 | | | My Mother | 7 | | | My Father | 8 | | | Possessions | 9 | | | The Horses | 10 | | | The Sheep | 11 | | | The Goats | 12 | | | The Lambs | 13 | | | The Trading Post | 14 | | | Selling | 15 | | | The Silversmith | 17 | | | Turquoise | 18 | | | It Is Dry | 19 | | | Sorting the Wool | 20 | | | Cleaning the Wool | 21 | | | Carding the Wool | 22 | | | Spinning | 23 | | | Autumn | 25 | | | Dyeing | 27 | | | Weaving | 29 | | | Learning To Weave | 30 | | | Flood | 32 | | | Sun | 33 | | | Herding | 34 | HOME LAND The land around my mother's hogan is big. It is still. It has walls of red rocks. And way, far off the sky comes down to touch the sands. Blue sky is above me. Yellow sand is beneath me. The sheep are around me. My mother's hogan is near. THE HOGAN My mother's hogan is round and earth-color. Its floor is smooth and hard. It has a friendly fire and an open door. It is my home. I live happily in my mother's hogan. NIGHT CORRAL The night corral is fenced with poles. It is the home for the sheep and the goats when darkness comes to my mother's land. THE CORNFIELD The cornfield is fenced with poles. My mother works in the cornfield. My father works in the cornfield. While they are working I walk among the corn plants. I sing to the tall tasseled corn. In the middle of all these known things stands my mother's hogan with its open door. MY MOTHER My mother is sun browned color. Her eyes are dark. Her hair shines black. My mother is good to look at, but I like her hands the best. They are beautiful. They are strong and quick at working, but when they touch my hands they are slow moving and gentle. The colored yarns are the singing words weaving through the drum beats. When the blanket is finished it is like a finished song. The warp and the drum beats, the colored wools and the singing words are forgotten. Only the pattern of color and of sound is left. LEARNING TO WEAVE My mother took me in her arms. We sat together at her loom. She took my hands to guide them along the weaving way. She showed them how to weave. We did not weave straight across the loom. That is not our way. We wove with one color for a little way up. And then with another color for a little way up. We kept the edges straight. We wove not too tight and not too loose and pounded it down, pounded it down, pounded it. But when I told my father, "See, I wove this blanket," my mother spoke sharply. "We do not say things that are not true," she told me. I hid my face away from the sharp words of my mother, but soon my mother's hand came gently to touch my hair. FLOOD Rain comes hard and black. It fills the arroyos with yellow water running in anger. Great pieces of sand bank on the sides of the arroyos slide into the water with little tired noises and are lost for always. The rain pools fill with water, rain water, fresh and clean and cold. SUN Sun comes now to comfort the land that the rain has frightened. My father says, "Sun takes the rain water from the thirsty land back to the sky too soon." But my mother and I, we are glad the sun comes soon. Sun does not mean to rob the land of water. Sun means only to warm it again. HERDING Today I go with my mother. I go with her to drive the sheep for I must learn to tend the flock. It takes many steps to keep up with my mother. It takes many steps to keep up with the sheep. She calls me Little Herder of the Sheep. And so we walk across the sand. We walk till the day is done, till the sun goes and the stars are almost ready to come. We walk to the water hole when day is at the middle. We walk to the night corral when day is at the close, the sheep, my mother and my mother's Little Herder. Before the hogan fire, when night has come, my father sings, my mother whispers, "Come sit beside me Little Herder." From now till always I want to be my mother's Little Herder.
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