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Poet Sara Marie Ortiz on what the moon has to teach us

Sara Marie Ortiz
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Each day during the month of April, KUOW is highlighting the work of Seattle-based poets for National Poetry Month. In this series curated by Seattle Civic Poet and Ten Thousand Things host Shin Yu Pai, you'll find a selection of poems for the mind, heart, senses, and soul.

Poet Sara Marie Ortiz looks at Seattle's landscape from a bird's-eye view, while contemplating natural and urban worlds, ever-present change, and all that's mutable.

Sara Marie Ortiz is a Seattle-based educator, Native arts, lit, and culture specialist and writer of creative nonfiction, poetry, and mixed-genre work. She is an enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Acoma and holds a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. She currently serves as the Native Education Program Manager for Highline Public Schools in Burien.


Chimera


I have the carcass of
A heron
Hanging in my office.
I call him Blue.


I read an "article" in the Times
About how you know if you're a true Seattleite.


Never read the comments.


If you get to see the moon
And truly see it
Full or not.


In winter.


You are truly lucky.


The moon teaches all things.


About houses.


And their absence.


The Duwamish river
Looking out
Lucky Liquor on Marginal with
The semis
Passing by so loud.


A heron.
And the salmon jumping up
Then back down
And across.


The moon.
The moon,


She.


Teaches us all things.


About how things are always changing.
No matter what we do.


If you don't know
Even a little bit about story


And most particularly
The story of


The Changer.


You should.


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