It’s still dark here. What can’t be seen moves deftly through the courier winds.
I take count of all the events that have brought me here
To this island, to this female native body that has now turned
It’s steps toward death. We are all going somewhere, that’s true
Or we dream we are—for a week now I have been both the dreamer of my dreams--and the watcher of my dreams, as now. And I don’t
Know which is which, who is writing the song, who is singing it and who
Has decided to become the songs of these winds.
They are familiar, these winds. Called in English: trade winds. Called by
The watcher: the winds who always come during this season to delight or stun us with knowledge from the rest of the spin. Refresh us.
I want to know more than I know so I thank this lanky, weary body.
It’s the observation post in a healing field.
The outline is the definition: it’s a pre-dawn sky, a dark contemplative moon, the weave of the perfume of naupakapaka, and the wreck of unpacking.
So now, you’re being too literal. This is how you were taught to negotiate
In the schools of the conquerors.
But how can you know the songs these winds bear if you know only
How to count in English, and know not the spirits of the numbers?
How they travel.
10/29/05
10/19/05
Toronto Doings
October 19, 2005 Toronto
On the road: I arrived in Toronto Monday night. No hassle at customs. The person assigned to pick me up didn’t show, so took a car in. Flying so quickly across lands, waters and sky and earth territories can make you forget yourself. It usually takes me a few days to remember myself. The soul can travel faster than the speed of light, but traveling by plane is rough.
I stumbled into Brian Wright-McLeod’s Renegade Radio Show at 8PM a few hours later. His new book is out from the University of Arizona Press: The Encyclopedia of Native Music. (See note following.) He played “This is My Heart”, “Fear” and the “Had-It-Up-To Here Round Dance.” We visited. I caught a taxi back to my digs and was regaled by the Chinese taxi driver’s story of meeting up with an alien when he was a child in China.
Tuesday I spent in solitude: rehearsing and practicing my set list (a proposal of 18 tunes, including Desireless and Europa). To dinner with G. F. who helped set up the gig with Hugh’s Room. (See poster announcement.) I will be playing with the Shane Anthony Band Thursday night. He took me to Hugh’s Room. We heard an amazing guitar player/singer Kelly Joe Phelps. Scoped it out. Intimate. Excellent sound. People come to hear the performances. That’s good to know. The last and only time I played in a club was at Indian Market several years ago with Poetic Justice. The infamous R. R. asked us to open for him at a restaurant on Canyon Road. We were in the middle of our set when word went out that Kevin Costner was in the audience. R.R. and his band squeezed us mid-song off the tiny little stage. We had to pass our equipment out the side window. He didn’t pay us either. We eventually got the money from his manager who was embarrassed by his behavior.
We’ll see what happens here. Wednesday we rehearsed. Had to cut tunes. The sets are way too long. Decided to cut among others Desireless and Europa. I didn’t have charts—and they were the least developed. If I play them I want to make them my own, not do someone else’s arrangements. More work, beloved work. Somehow have to balance it all. Great musicians. I’m looking forward to it. Getting revved up. Have been for weeks. Was hesitant to accept the gig in the first place. G.F. said they were jazz musicians. The only other gig I had played with jazz musicians was in San Fran a few years ago. My appearance was only a set. Two wonderful musicians: I’d met with them, laid out the tunes. We need to rehearse, I said. No, they said, we don’t need to rehearse. I made sure they had my notes, chords, semi-charts and recordings of the tunes so they could be ready. On the downbeat they went off into free jazz mode and I was left standing there trying to find my way into what didn't appear to be my songs anymore. That was the worst gig I ever had. Wasn’t reimbursed for my room for one night, either. So it goes. Makes a good story.
That’s what I told myself a few years ago as I walked along the New Jersey Turnpike dragging my bags at 2A.M. one dark morning. This will make a good story. And it did. Maybe I’ll save that for next time.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Couldn't download the Hugh's Room Poster. It goes something like this:
AVR and Laughing Dog Productions Presents: JOY HARJO AND THE SHANE ANTHONY BAND, HUGH'Sroom, 2261 Dundas St. West, October 20th 8:30 PM. $15 at the door, $13 in advance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Also check out:
The Encyclopedia of Native Music More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet Brian Wright-McLeod.
University of Arizona Press
464 pp. / 47 halftones / 7 x 10 / 2005 Paper (9780816524488) $26.95 Cloth (9780816524471) $55.00
Want the word on Buffy Sainte-Marie? Looking for the best powwow recordings? Wondering what else Jim Pepper cut besides "Witchi Tai To"? This book will answer those questions and more as it opens up the world of Native American music.
In addition to the widely heard sounds of Carlos Nakai’s flute, Native music embraces a wide range of forms: country and folk, jazz and swing, reggae and rap. Brian Wright-McLeod, producer/host of Canada’s longest-running Native radio program, has gathered the musicians and their music into this comprehensive reference, an authoritative source for biographies and discographies of hundreds of Native artists.
The Encyclopedia of Native Music recognizes the multifaceted contributions made by Native recording artists by tracing the history of their commercially released music. It provides an overview of the surprising abundance of recorded Native music while underlining its historical value.
With almost 1,800 entries spanning more than 100 years, this book leads readers from early performers of traditional songs like William Horncloud to artists of the new millennium such as Zotigh. Along the way, it includes entries for jazz and blues artists never widely acknowledged for their Native roots—Oscar Pettiford, Mildred Bailey, and Keely Smith—and traces the recording histories of contemporary performers like Rita Coolidge and Jimmy Carl Black, "the Indian of the group" in the original Mothers of Invention. It also includes film soundtracks and compilation albums that have been instrumental in bringing many artists to popular attention. In addition to music, it lists spoken-word recordings, including audio books, comedy, interviews, poetry, and more.
With this unprecedented breadth of coverage and extensively cross-referenced, The Encyclopedia of Native Music is an essential guide for enthusiasts and collectors. More than that, it is a gateway to the authentic music of North America—music of the people who have known this land from time immemorial and continue to celebrate it in sound.
Brian Wright-McLeod (Dakota-Anishnabe) began working as a music journalist in 1979. His column "Dirty Words and Thoughts about Music" appears bimonthly in News from Indian Country. His activist work in Native rights took him to the airwaves on CKLN 88.1 FM in Toronto in 1985, where he continues to produce and host Renegade Radio, a live two-hour weekly music and issues program.
See other books on Native Americans
On the road: I arrived in Toronto Monday night. No hassle at customs. The person assigned to pick me up didn’t show, so took a car in. Flying so quickly across lands, waters and sky and earth territories can make you forget yourself. It usually takes me a few days to remember myself. The soul can travel faster than the speed of light, but traveling by plane is rough.
I stumbled into Brian Wright-McLeod’s Renegade Radio Show at 8PM a few hours later. His new book is out from the University of Arizona Press: The Encyclopedia of Native Music. (See note following.) He played “This is My Heart”, “Fear” and the “Had-It-Up-To Here Round Dance.” We visited. I caught a taxi back to my digs and was regaled by the Chinese taxi driver’s story of meeting up with an alien when he was a child in China.
Tuesday I spent in solitude: rehearsing and practicing my set list (a proposal of 18 tunes, including Desireless and Europa). To dinner with G. F. who helped set up the gig with Hugh’s Room. (See poster announcement.) I will be playing with the Shane Anthony Band Thursday night. He took me to Hugh’s Room. We heard an amazing guitar player/singer Kelly Joe Phelps. Scoped it out. Intimate. Excellent sound. People come to hear the performances. That’s good to know. The last and only time I played in a club was at Indian Market several years ago with Poetic Justice. The infamous R. R. asked us to open for him at a restaurant on Canyon Road. We were in the middle of our set when word went out that Kevin Costner was in the audience. R.R. and his band squeezed us mid-song off the tiny little stage. We had to pass our equipment out the side window. He didn’t pay us either. We eventually got the money from his manager who was embarrassed by his behavior.
We’ll see what happens here. Wednesday we rehearsed. Had to cut tunes. The sets are way too long. Decided to cut among others Desireless and Europa. I didn’t have charts—and they were the least developed. If I play them I want to make them my own, not do someone else’s arrangements. More work, beloved work. Somehow have to balance it all. Great musicians. I’m looking forward to it. Getting revved up. Have been for weeks. Was hesitant to accept the gig in the first place. G.F. said they were jazz musicians. The only other gig I had played with jazz musicians was in San Fran a few years ago. My appearance was only a set. Two wonderful musicians: I’d met with them, laid out the tunes. We need to rehearse, I said. No, they said, we don’t need to rehearse. I made sure they had my notes, chords, semi-charts and recordings of the tunes so they could be ready. On the downbeat they went off into free jazz mode and I was left standing there trying to find my way into what didn't appear to be my songs anymore. That was the worst gig I ever had. Wasn’t reimbursed for my room for one night, either. So it goes. Makes a good story.
That’s what I told myself a few years ago as I walked along the New Jersey Turnpike dragging my bags at 2A.M. one dark morning. This will make a good story. And it did. Maybe I’ll save that for next time.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Couldn't download the Hugh's Room Poster. It goes something like this:
AVR and Laughing Dog Productions Presents: JOY HARJO AND THE SHANE ANTHONY BAND, HUGH'Sroom, 2261 Dundas St. West, October 20th 8:30 PM. $15 at the door, $13 in advance.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Also check out:
The Encyclopedia of Native Music More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet Brian Wright-McLeod.
University of Arizona Press
464 pp. / 47 halftones / 7 x 10 / 2005 Paper (9780816524488) $26.95 Cloth (9780816524471) $55.00
Want the word on Buffy Sainte-Marie? Looking for the best powwow recordings? Wondering what else Jim Pepper cut besides "Witchi Tai To"? This book will answer those questions and more as it opens up the world of Native American music.
In addition to the widely heard sounds of Carlos Nakai’s flute, Native music embraces a wide range of forms: country and folk, jazz and swing, reggae and rap. Brian Wright-McLeod, producer/host of Canada’s longest-running Native radio program, has gathered the musicians and their music into this comprehensive reference, an authoritative source for biographies and discographies of hundreds of Native artists.
The Encyclopedia of Native Music recognizes the multifaceted contributions made by Native recording artists by tracing the history of their commercially released music. It provides an overview of the surprising abundance of recorded Native music while underlining its historical value.
With almost 1,800 entries spanning more than 100 years, this book leads readers from early performers of traditional songs like William Horncloud to artists of the new millennium such as Zotigh. Along the way, it includes entries for jazz and blues artists never widely acknowledged for their Native roots—Oscar Pettiford, Mildred Bailey, and Keely Smith—and traces the recording histories of contemporary performers like Rita Coolidge and Jimmy Carl Black, "the Indian of the group" in the original Mothers of Invention. It also includes film soundtracks and compilation albums that have been instrumental in bringing many artists to popular attention. In addition to music, it lists spoken-word recordings, including audio books, comedy, interviews, poetry, and more.
With this unprecedented breadth of coverage and extensively cross-referenced, The Encyclopedia of Native Music is an essential guide for enthusiasts and collectors. More than that, it is a gateway to the authentic music of North America—music of the people who have known this land from time immemorial and continue to celebrate it in sound.
Brian Wright-McLeod (Dakota-Anishnabe) began working as a music journalist in 1979. His column "Dirty Words and Thoughts about Music" appears bimonthly in News from Indian Country. His activist work in Native rights took him to the airwaves on CKLN 88.1 FM in Toronto in 1985, where he continues to produce and host Renegade Radio, a live two-hour weekly music and issues program.
See other books on Native Americans
10/10/05
Two Offerings
May Your Journey Be Beautiful
(Final, final version)
A little rain has blanketed the earth
Swallows fly out for breakfast from their adobe house:
Above the door of this adobe, and we fly up from sleep—
The Sun’s great house is shimmering. We smell gratitude,
And relish breakfast.
Where did these bananas come from? And who picked the coffee?
Did anyone sing to the young plants,
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
It’s all happening at the kitchen table: we visit: talk politics.
Who’s fired; who’s hot and not, who’s left and who will return, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of ruin.
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else for now. They’ll dump the scraps here later.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We needed a little rain.
Later I walk concrete in town to the tribal summit
Datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, for rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
I ask him for his name.
We visit, talk politics: it’s the same.
We needed a little rain.
Rain. Rain.
May your journey be beautiful from the sky to this hungry earth.
c Joy Harjo September 2005 Albuquerque
WAS IT A DREAM, DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?
I asked the sparrow without speaking--
As the sun graced the field behind the hotel
Breaking through sorrow.
A dog barks at a man walking to work
Carrying lunch in a paper bag
Or at the yellow cat elegantly picking her way
Along the metal fence
Placed to keep the poor out.
Another swollen whirlpool of anger
Rolls in along the Gulf
The dancers in the storm are dressed in red
And pus yellow.
They are not of this world and have
Emerged from debris
In the oil fields.
They are the metal pulse speeding up
The rhythm.
Is this a dream and is it really happening?
Lightning came to eat from a bowl
Offered to the storm.
Didn’t know whether it was a dream,
Or if it was really happening?
This morning I will open my eyes into the fourth world
And pull on a light skin
Constructed of dreams as old as the first breath of stars.
I will step down from sleep with feet
As familiar as roving deer
In a nation of pines.
I will wash my face in the sink and know I am kneeling at a river
Near home.
I will answer my phone and say hello,
I will know this is a dream
And it is really happening.
c Joy Harjo September 23, 2005 Tucson
(Final, final version)
A little rain has blanketed the earth
Swallows fly out for breakfast from their adobe house:
Above the door of this adobe, and we fly up from sleep—
The Sun’s great house is shimmering. We smell gratitude,
And relish breakfast.
Where did these bananas come from? And who picked the coffee?
Did anyone sing to the young plants,
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
It’s all happening at the kitchen table: we visit: talk politics.
Who’s fired; who’s hot and not, who’s left and who will return, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of ruin.
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else for now. They’ll dump the scraps here later.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We needed a little rain.
Later I walk concrete in town to the tribal summit
Datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, for rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
I ask him for his name.
We visit, talk politics: it’s the same.
We needed a little rain.
Rain. Rain.
May your journey be beautiful from the sky to this hungry earth.
c Joy Harjo September 2005 Albuquerque
WAS IT A DREAM, DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?
I asked the sparrow without speaking--
As the sun graced the field behind the hotel
Breaking through sorrow.
A dog barks at a man walking to work
Carrying lunch in a paper bag
Or at the yellow cat elegantly picking her way
Along the metal fence
Placed to keep the poor out.
Another swollen whirlpool of anger
Rolls in along the Gulf
The dancers in the storm are dressed in red
And pus yellow.
They are not of this world and have
Emerged from debris
In the oil fields.
They are the metal pulse speeding up
The rhythm.
Is this a dream and is it really happening?
Lightning came to eat from a bowl
Offered to the storm.
Didn’t know whether it was a dream,
Or if it was really happening?
This morning I will open my eyes into the fourth world
And pull on a light skin
Constructed of dreams as old as the first breath of stars.
I will step down from sleep with feet
As familiar as roving deer
In a nation of pines.
I will wash my face in the sink and know I am kneeling at a river
Near home.
I will answer my phone and say hello,
I will know this is a dream
And it is really happening.
c Joy Harjo September 23, 2005 Tucson
10/9/05
June Jordan Tribute, in Honor of her posthumous collected poems, Directed by Desire, Copper Canyon Press, October 6, 2006, New York City
This was the morning of the fourth day of the birth of my fourth granddaughter. This is the day we offer her spirit to the sun, for acknowledgement, for a blessing. What do I offer her on this day, when I am far away, at the eastern edge of the empire?
There is no question: these are strange and difficult times. This morning as I prepared for this tribute for the warrior poet June Jordan who graced our path, I walked from my hotel to Times Square and brought June with me. There in the middle of the city we stood amazed at the 21st century totem pole made of digital flash and neon. Holding up the bottom, the root power was the New York City Police Department. NYCPD was lit up in blue and red. This power symbol continued to rise up above the city, a stack of multinational corporations, the topmost image a flashy cup of noodle soup from a Japanese manufacturer. This is it: the starting point, or should I say, the ending point?
Then I heard her say as we continued to ponder the shape and soul of this day:
"And I got to thinking about the moral meaning of memory… [A]nd what it means to forget, what it means to fail to find and preserve the connections with the dead whose lives you, or I, want or need to honor with our own." —June Jordan
As always June once again turned me towards what matters, and the how and why, of how we consider the sacredness of this life, take memory into our hands to literally construct a future, a city, a state, an earth we can live in together, all of us, with laughter, song, dance and some sense, some common sense.
Funny how she now fits into this Milky Way of memory as one of the shining stars of connection. We turn to her, and will continue to turn to her, just as she turned to the poets, singers, the visionaries of justice in this whole world, to guide us through—It is because of this urgent need to know the truth and the shape and music of justice that I looked for and found the poetry of June Jordan. I was looking for a voice, for someone to make sense of this heavy memory I was carrying. It was the memory of my parents, their parents, the memory of the very land itself, the memory of all of us.
Tonight I offer this granddaughter, who has joined us in the promise of this place, the words and spirit of the warrior poet June Jordan.
“Grand Army Plaza” from Passion probably isn’t June’s most-known poem, or her best. What intrigues me is the address of contradiction, and the final wisdom imparted by the journey of the poem through the territory of history, politics and sex—all at once. Part of the power of June’s overall poetic vision comes from acknowledging contradictions: the contradictions of loving, of war, the contradictions of the phrase itself: “civil war”. This is quintessential June.
Grand Army Plaza
(for Ethelbert)
Why would anybody build a monument to civil war?
The tall man and myself tonight
we will not sleep together
we may not
either one of us
sleep
in any case
the differential between friend and lover
is a problem
definitions curse
as nowadays we’re friends
or
we were lovers once
while overarching the fastidious the starlit
dust
that softens space between us
is the history that bleeds
through shirt and blouse
alike
the stain of skin on stone
But on this hard ground curved by memories
of union and disunion and of brothers dead
by the familiar hand
how do we face to face a man
a woman
interpenetrated
free
and reaching still toward the kiss that will
not suffocate?
We are not survivors of a civil war
We survive our love
because we go on
loving
June Jordan
When I remember June to my granddaughter, I will tell her what I have committed to memory: June’s laugh and her love of laughter, her love of justice, of architectures of political and economic possibilities, a love for the poets (like those assembled here*), a love of forgers of elegant sense: like Angela Davis, R. Buckminster Fuller and Malcom X, her love of intrigue, of beauty in human form and thought form, a love of music however it happens to occur: on the dance floor of earthy jazz or the amazing somewhere else.
I will tell her of the being-in-love shine that was June. I will urge this girl to be in love with the possibilities for poetry to heal and give voice to the voiceless. I will tell her to make justice in the world; to give herself over to the very elements of poetry itself and use them to imagine a vision of perfection in this place.
And finally, on the evening of this fourth day since my granddaughter’s birth into this web of memory, I will remind her that in this legacy of June: there is no easy love. This love that holds us together is not a complacent or stupid falling off a cliff love. This love is not a long-suffering or a selfish love. It is a love with boxing gloves, a love with a tongue for truth and surprise, no matter the consequences. She will absolutely need this love for her part in hammering together and imagining the fifth day, the fifth world.
c Joy Harjo October 6, 2005
(Refrain on saxophone from Don Cherry’s “Desireless”.)
* Cornelius Eady, Laura Flanders, Bob Holman, Jan Heller Levi, Yusef Komunyakaa, Donna Masini, Sara Miles, Honor Moore, Junitsu Semitsu, Shelagh Patterson, and Adrienne Rich.
There is no question: these are strange and difficult times. This morning as I prepared for this tribute for the warrior poet June Jordan who graced our path, I walked from my hotel to Times Square and brought June with me. There in the middle of the city we stood amazed at the 21st century totem pole made of digital flash and neon. Holding up the bottom, the root power was the New York City Police Department. NYCPD was lit up in blue and red. This power symbol continued to rise up above the city, a stack of multinational corporations, the topmost image a flashy cup of noodle soup from a Japanese manufacturer. This is it: the starting point, or should I say, the ending point?
Then I heard her say as we continued to ponder the shape and soul of this day:
"And I got to thinking about the moral meaning of memory… [A]nd what it means to forget, what it means to fail to find and preserve the connections with the dead whose lives you, or I, want or need to honor with our own." —June Jordan
As always June once again turned me towards what matters, and the how and why, of how we consider the sacredness of this life, take memory into our hands to literally construct a future, a city, a state, an earth we can live in together, all of us, with laughter, song, dance and some sense, some common sense.
Funny how she now fits into this Milky Way of memory as one of the shining stars of connection. We turn to her, and will continue to turn to her, just as she turned to the poets, singers, the visionaries of justice in this whole world, to guide us through—It is because of this urgent need to know the truth and the shape and music of justice that I looked for and found the poetry of June Jordan. I was looking for a voice, for someone to make sense of this heavy memory I was carrying. It was the memory of my parents, their parents, the memory of the very land itself, the memory of all of us.
Tonight I offer this granddaughter, who has joined us in the promise of this place, the words and spirit of the warrior poet June Jordan.
“Grand Army Plaza” from Passion probably isn’t June’s most-known poem, or her best. What intrigues me is the address of contradiction, and the final wisdom imparted by the journey of the poem through the territory of history, politics and sex—all at once. Part of the power of June’s overall poetic vision comes from acknowledging contradictions: the contradictions of loving, of war, the contradictions of the phrase itself: “civil war”. This is quintessential June.
Grand Army Plaza
(for Ethelbert)
Why would anybody build a monument to civil war?
The tall man and myself tonight
we will not sleep together
we may not
either one of us
sleep
in any case
the differential between friend and lover
is a problem
definitions curse
as nowadays we’re friends
or
we were lovers once
while overarching the fastidious the starlit
dust
that softens space between us
is the history that bleeds
through shirt and blouse
alike
the stain of skin on stone
But on this hard ground curved by memories
of union and disunion and of brothers dead
by the familiar hand
how do we face to face a man
a woman
interpenetrated
free
and reaching still toward the kiss that will
not suffocate?
We are not survivors of a civil war
We survive our love
because we go on
loving
June Jordan
When I remember June to my granddaughter, I will tell her what I have committed to memory: June’s laugh and her love of laughter, her love of justice, of architectures of political and economic possibilities, a love for the poets (like those assembled here*), a love of forgers of elegant sense: like Angela Davis, R. Buckminster Fuller and Malcom X, her love of intrigue, of beauty in human form and thought form, a love of music however it happens to occur: on the dance floor of earthy jazz or the amazing somewhere else.
I will tell her of the being-in-love shine that was June. I will urge this girl to be in love with the possibilities for poetry to heal and give voice to the voiceless. I will tell her to make justice in the world; to give herself over to the very elements of poetry itself and use them to imagine a vision of perfection in this place.
And finally, on the evening of this fourth day since my granddaughter’s birth into this web of memory, I will remind her that in this legacy of June: there is no easy love. This love that holds us together is not a complacent or stupid falling off a cliff love. This love is not a long-suffering or a selfish love. It is a love with boxing gloves, a love with a tongue for truth and surprise, no matter the consequences. She will absolutely need this love for her part in hammering together and imagining the fifth day, the fifth world.
c Joy Harjo October 6, 2005
(Refrain on saxophone from Don Cherry’s “Desireless”.)
* Cornelius Eady, Laura Flanders, Bob Holman, Jan Heller Levi, Yusef Komunyakaa, Donna Masini, Sara Miles, Honor Moore, Junitsu Semitsu, Shelagh Patterson, and Adrienne Rich.
9/28/05
The Appearance of Tests in the Sky
This morning the aroma of plants and earth after rain saturates and refreshes me. I feel like a plant who was in need of rain, and it came. Yesterday was a long day, a short night in a series of long days and short nights. I knew the owls to the right of the car Saturday night as we drove down, after the film showing from Tucson to Patagonia, were a message, a warning. I felt death. Then, almost immediately after, a bright light fell straight to the earth in front of us. It was not the elegant arc of a star or heavenly body following a circular trajectory. It was sure fall. Later, after we unpacked and discovered the new home of my beloved friend, we gathered under the stars. The last time I had been so present with the stars, moved with them, as the earth moved was at ceremonies mid-summer. The vision of them rekindled that fire. I carry it with me wherever I go.
It’s sort of like freeze-dried vision.
I have a friend who is physically present, beautiful even in her physicality. She has taken good care of her body all of her life. She shines with vitality while she walks the earth. Yet, when she dives into the ocean and swims she transforms into a water being. She has left the earth and concerns and thoughts of earthliness behind. Her earthly self pales, just as a wet rock that is shiny brilliant with color when wet is not recognizable in the same way when dry. I become myself when I am with the stars. I dive and fly. In that night sky is an exquisite loneliness. The beginning and the end live there. Eternity is described there. Our human roots may extend into the earth but it is the sky that defines our spirit.
That night, as death nudged my heart, friendly bats swooped joyously around us, happy for the companionship, and the three dog spirits who took care of my friend and the house joined us beneath the stunning sky. I hadn’t seen the Milky Way in such detail in a long time, not since the Amazon River in Peru. I accepted the warning as a gift as we quietly communed there.
Yesterday the fulfillment of the prophecy came in the sudden death of a relatively young Creek cousin who grew up in Okemah but lived in the Sacramento area most of her life. Her life made a rough path. Her last stint in prison, for something stupid and not worthy of a prison term: drugs and the need for vision in her painful world--she’d emerged with a resolve to be transformed. She was writing her story just as she was attempting to rewrite her life from a story of soap opera to one of shining purpose. We all gathered around her to sustain her, just as we gathered around her spirit last night. Strange how life is, or should I say strange how death is—it was her mother who was in the hospital struggling for healing. It was her daughter who left first.
I embrace this day for what it will bring. It appears easy to make such a statement, as easy as tapping out the words on the keyboard, but what does that really mean? Do I embrace hurricane devastation? Do I embrace the other natural and unnatural disasters that characterize these times, the foul governments, the roving evil ones who scoop up our children? I am once again reminded of the Mvskoke word, onvkckv, which is more than a word, it makes a deep image of meaning that provides the resonance of culture and is why we are still here despite the gifts of terrible tests. It’s a word that means compassion, an over arcing compassion, a compassion that provides a vision of meaning that is the size of the sky filled with stars. When we are there, in that word, in that sky, we can see the sense of it all, and keep going.
It’s sort of like freeze-dried vision.
I have a friend who is physically present, beautiful even in her physicality. She has taken good care of her body all of her life. She shines with vitality while she walks the earth. Yet, when she dives into the ocean and swims she transforms into a water being. She has left the earth and concerns and thoughts of earthliness behind. Her earthly self pales, just as a wet rock that is shiny brilliant with color when wet is not recognizable in the same way when dry. I become myself when I am with the stars. I dive and fly. In that night sky is an exquisite loneliness. The beginning and the end live there. Eternity is described there. Our human roots may extend into the earth but it is the sky that defines our spirit.
That night, as death nudged my heart, friendly bats swooped joyously around us, happy for the companionship, and the three dog spirits who took care of my friend and the house joined us beneath the stunning sky. I hadn’t seen the Milky Way in such detail in a long time, not since the Amazon River in Peru. I accepted the warning as a gift as we quietly communed there.
Yesterday the fulfillment of the prophecy came in the sudden death of a relatively young Creek cousin who grew up in Okemah but lived in the Sacramento area most of her life. Her life made a rough path. Her last stint in prison, for something stupid and not worthy of a prison term: drugs and the need for vision in her painful world--she’d emerged with a resolve to be transformed. She was writing her story just as she was attempting to rewrite her life from a story of soap opera to one of shining purpose. We all gathered around her to sustain her, just as we gathered around her spirit last night. Strange how life is, or should I say strange how death is—it was her mother who was in the hospital struggling for healing. It was her daughter who left first.
I embrace this day for what it will bring. It appears easy to make such a statement, as easy as tapping out the words on the keyboard, but what does that really mean? Do I embrace hurricane devastation? Do I embrace the other natural and unnatural disasters that characterize these times, the foul governments, the roving evil ones who scoop up our children? I am once again reminded of the Mvskoke word, onvkckv, which is more than a word, it makes a deep image of meaning that provides the resonance of culture and is why we are still here despite the gifts of terrible tests. It’s a word that means compassion, an over arcing compassion, a compassion that provides a vision of meaning that is the size of the sky filled with stars. When we are there, in that word, in that sky, we can see the sense of it all, and keep going.
9/26/05
Final version, May Your Journey Be Beautiful
May Your Journey Be Beautiful
A little rain has blanketed the earth
Swallows fly out from their adobe house:
Above the door of this adobe, just as we’ve flown up from sleep—
Led by prayers and coffee.
The sun’s great house is shimmering.
We smell gratitude; it tastes of sage and dust.
We’re relish breakfast; we know times when there was none.
Where did these bananas come from? And who picked the coffee beans?
Did anyone sing to the young plants
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
It’s all happening at the kitchen table: we visit, talk politics.
Who’s fired; who’s hot and not, who’s left and who will return, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of ruin.
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else for now. They’ll dump the scraps here later.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We needed a little rain.
Later I walk concrete in town to the tribal summit
Datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, for rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
I ask him for his name.
We visit, talk politics: it’s the same.
We needed a little rain.
Rain. Rain.
May your journey be beautiful from the sky to this hungry earth.
c Joy Harjo September 2005 Albuquerque
A little rain has blanketed the earth
Swallows fly out from their adobe house:
Above the door of this adobe, just as we’ve flown up from sleep—
Led by prayers and coffee.
The sun’s great house is shimmering.
We smell gratitude; it tastes of sage and dust.
We’re relish breakfast; we know times when there was none.
Where did these bananas come from? And who picked the coffee beans?
Did anyone sing to the young plants
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
It’s all happening at the kitchen table: we visit, talk politics.
Who’s fired; who’s hot and not, who’s left and who will return, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of ruin.
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else for now. They’ll dump the scraps here later.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We needed a little rain.
Later I walk concrete in town to the tribal summit
Datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, for rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
I ask him for his name.
We visit, talk politics: it’s the same.
We needed a little rain.
Rain. Rain.
May your journey be beautiful from the sky to this hungry earth.
c Joy Harjo September 2005 Albuquerque
9/13/05
May Your Journey Be Beautiful, take two
A little rain has blanketed the earth
Swallows fly out from their adobe nest as we’ve flown up from sleep
For coffee and the news—our dreams shooting roots into the earth.
Memory has its own breath, watches over us with the vision of eagles.
Politics dominates the kitchen: who’s fired; who’s hot and not, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of ruin.
And where did these bananas come from?
Who picked them and did anyone sing to those young banana trees
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else for now. They’ll dump the scraps here later.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We needed a little rain.
I walk concrete in town to the tribal summit
Datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, in the rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
When are we most ourselves on this journey?
c Joy Harjo 9/05
Swallows fly out from their adobe nest as we’ve flown up from sleep
For coffee and the news—our dreams shooting roots into the earth.
Memory has its own breath, watches over us with the vision of eagles.
Politics dominates the kitchen: who’s fired; who’s hot and not, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of ruin.
And where did these bananas come from?
Who picked them and did anyone sing to those young banana trees
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else for now. They’ll dump the scraps here later.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We needed a little rain.
I walk concrete in town to the tribal summit
Datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, in the rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
When are we most ourselves on this journey?
c Joy Harjo 9/05
9/12/05
The Trouble of Not Learning to Say No
Instead of “no” she said:
When is she getting married? What if it’s raining or there’s an early snow?
What if my neighbor dies, and there’s four days?
You say you want a tent? You want to put it here?
What if the tent flies away or catches fire from the candles
You want to set up along the adobe wall and around
the perimeter?
And where will the tent come from? And who will bring it here,
set it up and take it down?
What if they have doings? And what if the neighbor dies?
I don’t want strangers walking around here, coming in and out of my house to set up
candles or the tent or a dessert table.
Who’s making all the desserts?
And you want it here? And where will you put all of it?
What if everyone comes from all over the country, even those Oklahomas and
the in-laws, the ex-laws and outlaws?
And where will everyone park, especially if the neighbor dies?
And you want to bring in the jazz singer who will sing in the tent
Surrounded by candles and all the in-laws, ex-laws and outlaws?
And what happens when the punch is spiked by every stash hidden in the dash of their trucks?
And then everyone starts dancing?
And they’re coming in and out of the house?
And what if the neighbor dies?
c Joy Harjo September 5, 2005
When is she getting married? What if it’s raining or there’s an early snow?
What if my neighbor dies, and there’s four days?
You say you want a tent? You want to put it here?
What if the tent flies away or catches fire from the candles
You want to set up along the adobe wall and around
the perimeter?
And where will the tent come from? And who will bring it here,
set it up and take it down?
What if they have doings? And what if the neighbor dies?
I don’t want strangers walking around here, coming in and out of my house to set up
candles or the tent or a dessert table.
Who’s making all the desserts?
And you want it here? And where will you put all of it?
What if everyone comes from all over the country, even those Oklahomas and
the in-laws, the ex-laws and outlaws?
And where will everyone park, especially if the neighbor dies?
And you want to bring in the jazz singer who will sing in the tent
Surrounded by candles and all the in-laws, ex-laws and outlaws?
And what happens when the punch is spiked by every stash hidden in the dash of their trucks?
And then everyone starts dancing?
And they’re coming in and out of the house?
And what if the neighbor dies?
c Joy Harjo September 5, 2005
May Your Journey Be Beautiful
A little rain has blanketed the earth
When are we most ourselves on this journey?
The rain doesn’t ask, nor do the earth, plants and stones who drink in rain.
Politics dominates the kitchen: who’s fired; who’s hot and not, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of the emperor of ruin.
And where did these bananas come from?
Who picked them and did anyone sing to those young banana trees
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
Swallows fly out from their adobe nest as we’ve flown up from sleep
For coffee and the news—our dreams shooting roots into the earth.
Memory has its own breath, watches over us with the vision made for eagles.
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We just needed a little rain.
As I walk concrete to the tribal summit
The datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, for rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
When are we most ourselves on this journey?
C Joy Harjo September 2005 Albuquerque
Remember, this is a DRAFT ONLY.
When are we most ourselves on this journey?
The rain doesn’t ask, nor do the earth, plants and stones who drink in rain.
Politics dominates the kitchen: who’s fired; who’s hot and not, and how
The price of gas is a perk given to the flunkies of the emperor of ruin.
And where did these bananas come from?
Who picked them and did anyone sing to those young banana trees
Pushing urgently from the creative earth?
Swallows fly out from their adobe nest as we’ve flown up from sleep
For coffee and the news—our dreams shooting roots into the earth.
Memory has its own breath, watches over us with the vision made for eagles.
The train runs through the pueblo making rough music but doesn’t stop.
We joke: it’s laden with uranium, cattle and oil.
It’s going somewhere else.
We get the politics, just how are we going to dance past this pain?
We just needed a little rain.
As I walk concrete to the tribal summit
The datura flowers are closing; someone has to stand guard with the night.
Even mystery needs to be held tenderly.
A Dineh brother stumbles up from the dark with his hands open, for rain:
Hey aren’t you the musician? He asks me for money, for a drink.
When are we most ourselves on this journey?
C Joy Harjo September 2005 Albuquerque
Remember, this is a DRAFT ONLY.
9/5/05
I am a traveler in the last days of an American Dream.
I have watched the twin towers of commerce on the eastern shores of America destroyed by fire. I have witnessed a takeover of the presidency by an oil family who are determined to own every drop of oil in the world, and control all the lands and peoples because they are superior; they have white skin and Christianity. The presidency is allied with Christian extremists who don’t consider themselves extremists, rather Christian soldiers working to claim all this for their God, a god who gave them the right to kill Indians and gives them the right to takeover the Middle East. Christian and Muslim fundamentalists over the globe now battle for control. A giant tsunami swallowed and destroyed the coastline of Thailand, and other parts of Asia, killed thousands. Last week Hurricane Katrina destroyed the coastal south of the U.S.. New Orleans, a major city of over a million is underwater. The refugees of the tragedy are those without money or means to get out. Most are black, or poor whites. They are without food, water or shelter. We watch them die on the streets. Corpses swell and float in the water with trash and offal. We watched the explosion of the chemical plant in the ruins. Angry clouds spewed from the wound. A voice of authority on the storyteller box: the television, tells everyone that the fumes are not poisonous. We saw the smoke rear back and search the city for lungs. It takes four days for the feds to send assistance. The president is golfing.
I don’t want to hate Christianity. I loved the Book of John in those years I took myself to church. There is wisdom there, and Jesus is a medicine man. I believe he is a son of god, and so are you, and so am I. We are sons and daughter of a father/mother God. I also loved the love poems in Song of Solomon.
Yesterday I went to church with my friend at the pueblo. I haven’t been inside a church to a service in years. I decided to attend in the right spirit. I respect my friend and I respect what takes people to religion. It’s often that need to attend to spiritual matters, to find comfort and direction. Sometimes it’s fear. It’s fear that established churches and religion in our native communities. We were forced to bow down to their Christianity. We were forced to their religious schools and beliefs. Force has now turned into habit.
What I appreciated and took part in was that sense of community, of love and compassion. Prayers filled the church and hung there. Some had the force of will and light and they traveled. That’s what I took with me.
Then we went out into the plaza for the dances; these were the Indian expression of that community, that love. The difference? A single white man was the authority in the church. It was an authority invested in him by a council of other males. The only female acknowledge was Mary, as a mother of the divine. In the plaza the female earth was the primary force. Men and women were in balance for the service of love.
I am trying to remember everything. To take in every detail of wherever I am of whatever I hear because that articulation will translate into a depth of articulation of meaning in all layers of consciousness. At least that’s what I believe at the moment. I also want to sing about it but must get the last nasty sting censor out of my head, my hands, my voice, and my heart. It is gone. I thank you censor of the gift you have given me. Now, leave.
A highlight in the gift of the day of yesterday took place in the kitchen, between serving the people who came to the house to eat a feast of posole, chile stew, potato salad, bread, desserts, fruit drink, and tea. We turned up the radio and danced in the kitchen on the linoleum floor. We turned and rocked to rock oldies, disco and bluesy heartbreak. We know those songs, the articulations of them in our souls and know what those songs are born from—like us they have emerged from the depths of raw knowledge, pain, from every social and spiritual ill that has been catalogued in Indian country, all over the world. I brought out my saxophone and wailed. I played by heart, or by ear. We're still dancing.
Today is Labor Day, so I will work. Of course there is a history, a story behind the dedication of this day as a national holiday. I don't mean to belittle it. Our labor is our gift, our service. Here it goes. Sing it to: Love and Happiness by Al Green. A classic. We wouldn't have Al Green without the musical caldron of New Orleans. Wouldn't have most of our music. Mvto.
I don’t want to hate Christianity. I loved the Book of John in those years I took myself to church. There is wisdom there, and Jesus is a medicine man. I believe he is a son of god, and so are you, and so am I. We are sons and daughter of a father/mother God. I also loved the love poems in Song of Solomon.
Yesterday I went to church with my friend at the pueblo. I haven’t been inside a church to a service in years. I decided to attend in the right spirit. I respect my friend and I respect what takes people to religion. It’s often that need to attend to spiritual matters, to find comfort and direction. Sometimes it’s fear. It’s fear that established churches and religion in our native communities. We were forced to bow down to their Christianity. We were forced to their religious schools and beliefs. Force has now turned into habit.
What I appreciated and took part in was that sense of community, of love and compassion. Prayers filled the church and hung there. Some had the force of will and light and they traveled. That’s what I took with me.
Then we went out into the plaza for the dances; these were the Indian expression of that community, that love. The difference? A single white man was the authority in the church. It was an authority invested in him by a council of other males. The only female acknowledge was Mary, as a mother of the divine. In the plaza the female earth was the primary force. Men and women were in balance for the service of love.
I am trying to remember everything. To take in every detail of wherever I am of whatever I hear because that articulation will translate into a depth of articulation of meaning in all layers of consciousness. At least that’s what I believe at the moment. I also want to sing about it but must get the last nasty sting censor out of my head, my hands, my voice, and my heart. It is gone. I thank you censor of the gift you have given me. Now, leave.
A highlight in the gift of the day of yesterday took place in the kitchen, between serving the people who came to the house to eat a feast of posole, chile stew, potato salad, bread, desserts, fruit drink, and tea. We turned up the radio and danced in the kitchen on the linoleum floor. We turned and rocked to rock oldies, disco and bluesy heartbreak. We know those songs, the articulations of them in our souls and know what those songs are born from—like us they have emerged from the depths of raw knowledge, pain, from every social and spiritual ill that has been catalogued in Indian country, all over the world. I brought out my saxophone and wailed. I played by heart, or by ear. We're still dancing.
Today is Labor Day, so I will work. Of course there is a history, a story behind the dedication of this day as a national holiday. I don't mean to belittle it. Our labor is our gift, our service. Here it goes. Sing it to: Love and Happiness by Al Green. A classic. We wouldn't have Al Green without the musical caldron of New Orleans. Wouldn't have most of our music. Mvto.
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