Ah, Ah

for Lurline McGregor


Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina.
Lands on the crown of the palm tree.

Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips.
We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.

Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin.
We claim our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish.

Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves.
Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead.

Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky—away from these waters.
Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss.

Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail. We fly by
on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars.

Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul. Ah, ah.


-- Joy Harjo (1951- ), poet laureate of the US, member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, teacher, musician, and native Tulsan, from How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems:1975-2001

For Keeps

Sun makes the day new.
Tiny green plants emerge from earth.
Birds are singing the sky into place.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here.
I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us.
We gallop into a warm, southern wind.
I link my legs to yours and we ride together,
Toward the ancient encampment of our relatives.
Where have you been? they ask.
And what has taken you so long?
That night after eating, singing, and dancing
We lay together under the stars.
We know ourselves to be part of mystery.
It is unspeakable.
It is everlasting.
It is for keeps.

 --Joy Harjo (1951- ), poet laureate of the United States 2019- , member of the Muscogee Nation, from Poems of Resistance, Poems of Hope, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye, 2020

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat 
   to live. 

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it 
   has been since creation, and it will go on. 

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the 
   corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to 
   be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around 
   our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down 
   selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the 
   table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. 

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in 
   the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents 
   for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering 
   and remorse. We give thanks. 

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are
   laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

--Joy Harjo (1951- ), poet laureate of the United States 2019- , member of the Muscogee Nation, from The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, 1994.

Connection

A hawk touches down
                  the humming earth before Miami,
                                                                         Oklahoma.
              You old Shawnee, I think
                                                  of your rugged ways
                      the slick-floored bars and whiskey
                        sour nights when the softer heart
                                                                             comes apart.
The Spokane you roam isn't City of the Angels
          but another kind of wilderness.
              You speed in a Ford truck and it's five
                  in the morning, the sun and dogs
                                                                      only ones up
and you go home to red earth
                                            when you see a hawk
               crossing wires

                                       touching down.

-- Joy Harjo (1951- ), Muscogee (Creek) American, US Poet Laureate 2019- . musician and artist, from She Had Some Horses, 1983.

Once the World Was Perfect

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.

-- Joy Harjo (1951- ), Muscogee (Creek) American, US Poet Laureate 2019- . musician and artist, from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, 2015.

An American Sunrise

We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We
were surfacing the edge of our ancestors’ fights, and ready to strike.
It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight.
Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We
made plans to be professional — and did. And some of us could sing
so we drummed a fire-lit pathway up to those starry stars. Sin
was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We
were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them — thin
chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little gin
will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing. We
had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz
I argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,
forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We
know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die
soon.

--Joy Harjo (1951- ), Muscogee (Creek) American, US poet laureate 2019-, from Poetry magazine, February 2017


Photo by Shawn Miller for the Library of Congress, June 19, 2019

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

--Joy Harjo (1951- ), Muscogee (Creek) American, named US Poet Laureate today, from Mad Love and War, 1990



Photo of a Golden Eagle in Flight from the US Geological Survey.

Insomnia and the Seven Steps to Grace

At dawn the panther of the heavens peers over the edge of the world.
She hears the stars gossip with the sun, sees the moon washing her lean
darkness with water electrified by prayers. All over the world there are those
who can't sleep, those who never awaken.

My granddaughter sleeps on the breast of her mother with milk on
her mouth. A fly contemplates the sweetness of lactose.

Her father is wrapped in the blanket of nightmares. For safety he
approaches the red hills near Thoreau. They recognize him and sing for
him.

Her mother has business in the house of chaos. She is a prophet dis-
guised as a young mother who is looking for a job. She appears at the
door of my dreams and we put the house back together.

Panther watches as human and animal souls are lifted to the heavens by
rain clouds to partake of songs of beautiful thunder.

Others are led by deer and antelope in the wistful hours to the vil-
lages of their ancestors. There they eat cornmeal cooked with berries
that stain their lips with purple while the tree of life flickers in the sun.

It's October, though the season before dawn is always winter. On the
city streets of this desert town lit by chemical yellow travelers
search for home.

Some have been drinking and intimate with strangers. Others are
escapees from the night shift, sip lukewarm coffee, shift gears to the
other side of darkness.

One woman stops at a red light, turns over a worn tape to the last
chorus of a whispery blues. She has decided to live another day.

The stars take notice, as do the half-asleep flowers, prickly pear and
chinaberry tree who drink exhaust into their roots, into the earth.

She guns the light to home where her children are asleep and may
never know she ever left. That their fate took a turn in the land of
nightmares toward the sun may be untouchable knowledge.

It is a sweet sound.

The panther relative yawns and puts her head between her paws.
She dreams of the house of panthers and the seven steps to grace.

--Joy Harjo (1951- ), Muscogee (Creek) American, US Poet Laureate 2019- , from Th Woman Who Fell From the Sky: Poems, 1996.



Photo of panther (mountain lion) from the National Park Service.

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.


--Joy Harjo (1951- ), current US poet laureate 2019- , member of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation, from She Had Some Horses, 1983.