Stories long ascribed the penance of our race,
whispered by familiars with the netherworld . . .
the crows, the coyotes, and sometimes even a mallard,
they all at times returned with warnings from the land of shadows
concerning our sentence for living with the wind.
We knew we were too free, we understood our desires flew wild,
and the thoughts of our ancestors screaming
throughout the skies would someday cost us all.

But who could ever comprehend the complete price
would be administered to our whole race?
Would it not be better to kill everyone,
than to rob us of all the skies and wind?

The babies’ hands are limp and so forlorn
I sometimes cannot tell the live ones from the dead;
I have lost all my wives to this journey,
and they were so weary of life they now have no strength
after death to speak any words to me.
I suffer the cold, I exist in torn blankets
aside the greatest river; I suffer the snow and the hunger, all this,
but it is too hard to listen to this silence from the dead ones.

I see a crow wobbling above the gray waters . . .
even this bird studies me before it speaks.
"Human cunning is worthless," says the black wing,
"when it is necessary to fly, and you will live and live
but never again understand the wind."
I find I cannot turn my eyes from the icy water,
even though the crow wants to taunt me more.