Sunrise

Oh sunrise, as you enter the houses, minds and fields of everyone on this hemisphere, find me here.

I have been crashing for days or has it been years beyond the medicine of eagles.

Find me beneath the shadow of this yearning mountain, hovering near newborn roots planted for nourishment.

I made myself sick with sour longings, the poison of enemies and the jangling of fears against my thigh I carried for protection.

My spirit rises up in the dark because it hears the sound of doves in cottonwoods calling forth the sun, and sees the play of light starting over boulders of tears.

I struggled with a monster and lost. My body was tossed in the pile of kill around his terrible feet. I rotted there with the rest.

I was ashamed and told myself for a thousand years or more that I did not deserve anything but this.

But one day in relentless eternity my spirit discerned the precise movement of prayers carried toward the sun.

And this morning I am able to stand and cry with all the other beings who welcome you here.

I begin to move with the lightness of your being.
And I will go in the direction for which there is a place for me.

c Joy Harjo 4/20/05 Albuqueque