Call It Fear
–Joy Harjo

There is this edge where shadows
and bones of some of us walk
backwards.
Talk backwards. There is this edge
call it an ocean of fear of the dark. Or
name it with other songs. Under our ribs
our hearts are bloody stars. Shine on
shine on, and horses in their galloping flight
strike the curve of ribs.
Heartbeat
and breathe back sharply. Breathe
backwards.
There is this edge within me
I saw it once
an August Sunday morning when the heat hadn’t
left this earth. And Goodluck
sat sleeping next to me in the truck.
We had never broken through the edge of the
singing at four a.m.
We had only wanted to talk, to hear
any other voice to stay alive with.
And there was this edge—
not the drop of sandy rock cliff
bones of volcanic earth into
Albuquerque.
Not that,
but a string of shadow horses kicking
and pulling me out of my belly,
not into the Rio Grande but into the music

barely coming through
Sunday church singing
from the radio. Battery worn-down but the voices
talking backwards.

Photo by Monty Allen on Unsplash

Skeleton of Winter
–Joy Harjo

Photo by Catherine Zaidova on Unsplash

What Music
–Joy Harjo

…I would have loved you then, in
the hot, moist tropics of your young womanhood.
Then
…  …the stars were out and fat every night.
They remembered your name
………………………………………and called to you
as you bent down in the doorway of the whiteman’s houses.
You savored each story they told you,
and remembered
………………………the way the stars entered your blood
………………………………………………………………………..at birth.
Maybe it was the Christians’ language
…………………………………………………that captured you,
or the bones that cracked in your heart each time
you missed the aboriginal music that you were.
But then,
………….you were the survivor of the births
of your two sons. The oldest one hates you, and the other
wants to marry you. Now they live in another language
in Los Angeles
………………….with their wives.
And you,
…………..the stars return every night to call you back.
They have followed your escape
…………………from the southern hemisphere
………………………………………………………..into the north.
Their voices echo out from your blood and you drink
the Christians’ brandy and fall back into
………doorways in an odd moonlight.
…………………………………………You sweat in the winter in the north,
and you are afraid,
………………………  sweetheart.

Photo by Philip Schroeder on Unsplash

 

White Bear
–Joy Harjo

Photo by Andy Brunner on Unsplash

Nautilus
–Joy Harjo

Either a snail’s moist web
of moonlight, or someone’s
hot breath at four a.m.
when the night has been
too much, has eaten
you whole.
This is my life.
It has been
sifted through the bones
of my body, through
blood.
It is all that
I have.

Photo by Andre Gaulin on Unsplash