Don't Bother the Earth Spirit (Poetry Month)

By Joy Harjo

 

Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It’s a story so compelling you may never want to leave; this is how she traps you. See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped.

 

from Secrets from the Center of the World by Joy Harjo, with photographs by Stephen Strom. University of Arizona Press, 1989

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee (Poetry Month)

 

By N. Scott Momaday

 

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive.

 

from In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991, by N. Scott Momaday. 

St. Martin’s Press, 1991

 

 

Declaration (Poetry Month)

By Tracy K. Smith

 

He has
               sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people
  He has plundered our—
                                            ravaged our—
                                                                        destroyed the lives of our—
  taking away our­—

                                  abolishing our most valuable—

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our—

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:
 
                                                                Our repeated
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
 
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration
and settlement here.
 
                                    —taken Captive
                                                               on the high Seas
                                                                                                      to bear—

 

 

 

from Wade in the Water, by Tracy K. Smith.  

Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org, 2018

Dakota Homecoming (Poetry Month)

By Gwen Nell Westerman

 

We are so honored that
              you are here, they said.
We know that this is
             your homeland, they said.
The admission price
             is five dollars, they said.
Here is your button
             for the event, they said.
It means so much to us that
             you are here, they said.
We want to write
             an apology letter, they said.
Tell us what to say.

 

from New Poets of Native Nations, by Gwen Nell Westerman, 2018

 

 

Crossing (Poetry Month)

 

By Jericho Brown

 

The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.

 

from The Tradition, by Jericho Brown

Copper Canyon Press, 2019

Catch a Little Rhyme (Poetry Month)

 

By Eve Merriam

 

Once upon a time
I caught a little rhyme

I set it on the floor
but it ran right out the door

I chased it on my bicycle
but it melted to an icicle

I scooped it up in my hat
but it turned into a cat

I caught it by the tail
but it stretched into a whale

I followed it in a boat
but it changed into a goat

When I fed it tin and paper
it became a tall skyscraper

Then it grew into a kite
and flew far out of sight …

 

from Catch a Little Rhyme, by Eve Merriam

 Atheneum, 1966

Broken Promises (Monday Poem)

 

By David Kirby

 

I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;   
I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb   
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,   
knowing I would only let them win.   
I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,   
coming back late from the interval   

long after the others have taken their seats,   
and in deserted shopping malls late at night,   
peering at things they can never buy,   
and I have found them wandering   
in a wood where I too have wandered.   

This morning I caught one;   
small and stupid, too slow to get away,   
it was only a promise I had made to myself once   
and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me   
and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach   
in their long, sad faces.
When I drew near them, they scurried away,   
even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.   
I hate them for their ingratitude,   
I who have kept countless promises,   
as dead now as Shakespeare’s children.   
“You bastards,” I scream,   
“you have to love me—I gave you life!”

 

from Big-Leg Music, by David Kirby

Orchises Press, 1995