Joy Harjo

We were dreaming on an occupied island at the farthest edge of a trembling nation when it went down. Two towers rose up from the east island of commerce and touched the sky. Men walked on the moon. Oil was sucked dry by two brothers. Then it went down. Swallowed by a fire dragon, by oil and fear. Eaten whole. It was coming. We had been watching since the eve of the missionaries in their long and solemn clothes, to see what would happen. We saw it from the kitchen window over the sink as we made coffee, cooked rice and potatoes, enough for an army. We saw it all, as we changed diapers and fed the babies. We saw it, through the branches of the knowledgeable tree through the snags of stars, through the sun and storms from our knees as we bathed and washed the floors. The conference of the birds warned us, as they flew over destroyers in the harbor, parked there since the first takeover. It was by their song and talk we knew when to rise when to look out the window to the commotion going on— the magnetic field thrown off by grief. We heard it. The racket in every corner of the world. As the hunger for war rose up in those who would steal to be president to be king or emperor, to own the trees, stones, and everything else that moved about the earth, inside the earth and above it. We knew it was coming, tasted the winds who gathered intelligence from each leaf and flower, from every mountain, sea and desert, from every prayer and song all over this tiny universe floating in the skies of infinite being. And then it was over, this world we had grown to love for its sweet grasses, for the many-colored horses and fishes, for the shimmering possibilities while dreaming. But then there were the seeds to plant and the babies who needed milk and comforting, and someone picked up a guitar or ukulele from the rubble and began to sing about the light flutter the kick beneath the skin of the earth we felt there, beneath us a warm animal a song being born between the legs of her; a poem.

From a story of how the tobacco plant came to our people, told to me by my cousin George Coser Jr. It was way back, before there was a way back When time threaded earth and sky. Children were conceived, were born, grew, and walked tall In what we now call a day. There must have been two suns, a bright moon, somehow We had more light than now, sheen Of falling in love playing about Earth’s body In a wild flicker which lit Us up. We who were this planet and yearned for touch. Every planted thought grew plant Ladders to the stars, way back, before there was No way back,Miss Mary Mack. We used to sing along the buttons of her Dress. Our babies are always Our babies. Even back then when time waved through The corn. We knew our plants like Relatives. Their stories were our stories, there Were songs for everything — I Should say “are” songs for every transformation They link between way back and Now, the forever now, a time when a young Mvskoke man and woman Walked through the shimmer of the early evening. They had become as one song. They lay down when it was dark. I can hear their Intimate low-voice talking. How they tease one another with such gut love. Earth makes a bed, with pillow Mounds. And it is there as the night insects sing They conceived their first child. They Will look back as they walk East toward the sunrise. The raw stalks of beginning Will drink the light, root deeply dark into earth. In the tracks of their loving The plant-child emerges, first the seed head, then Leafy, long male body and the white female Flowers of tobacco, or Hece, as the people called it when it called To them.Come here. We were brought To you from those who love you. We will help you.

I. She Had Some Horses She had some horses. She had horses who were bodies of sand. She had horses who were maps drawn of blood. She had horses who were skins of ocean water. She had horses who were the blue air of sky. She had horses who were fur and teeth. She had horses who were clay and would break. She had horses who were splintered red cliff. She had some horses. She had horses with eyes of trains. She had horses with full, brown thighs. She had horses who laughed too much. She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses. She had horses who licked razor blades. She had some horses. She had horses who danced in their mothers' arms. She had horses who thought they were the sun and their bodies shone and burned like stars. She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon. She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet in stalls of their own making. She had some horses. She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs. She had horses who cried in their beer. She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves. She had horses who said they weren't afraid. She had horses who lied. She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues. She had some horses. She had horses who called themselves, "horse." She had horses who called themselves, "spirit," and kept their voices secret and to themselves. She had horses who had no names. She had horses who had books of names. She had some horses. She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak. She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts. She had horses who waited for destruction. She had horses who waited for resurrection. She had some horses. She had horses who got down on their knees for any saviour. She had horses who thought their high price had saved them. She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her bed at night and prayed. She had some horses. She had some horses she loved. She had some horses she hated. These were the same horses. II. Two Horses I thought the sun breaking through Sangre de Cristo Mountains was enough, and that wild musky scents on my body after long nights of dreaming could unfold me to myself. I thought my dance alone through worlds of odd and eccentric planets that no one else knew would sustain me. I mean I did learn to move after all and how to recognize voices other than the most familiar. But you must have grown out of a thousand years dreaming just like I could never imagine you. You must have broke open from another sky to here, because now I see you as a part of the millions of other universes that I thought could never occur in this breathing. And I know you as myself, traveling. In your eyes alone are many colonies of stars and other circling planet motion. And then your fingers, the sweet smell of hair, and your soft, tight belly. My heart is taken by you and these mornings since I am a horse running towards a cracked sky where there are countless dawns breaking simultaneously. There are two moons on the horizon and for you I have broken loose. III. Drowning Horses She says she is going to kill herself. I am a thousand miles away. Listening. To her voice in an ocean of telephone sound. Grey sky and nearly sundown; I don't ask her how. I am already familiar with the weapons: a restaurant that wouldn't serve her, the thinnest laughter, another drink. And even if I weren't closer to the cliff edge of the talking wire, I would still be another mirror, another running horse. Her escape is my own. I tell her, yes. Yes. We ride out for breath over the distance. Night air approaches, the galloping other-life. No sound. No sound. IV. Ice Horses These are the ones who escape after the last hurt is turned inward; they are the most dangerous ones. These are the hottest ones, but so cold that your tongue sticks to them and is torn apart because it is frozen to the motion of hooves. These are the ones who cut your thighs, whose blood you must have seen on the gloves of the doctor's rubber hands. They are the horses who moaned like oceans, and one of them a young woman screamed aloud; she was the only one. These are the ones who have found you. These are the ones who pranced on your belly. They chased deer out of your womb. These are the ice horses, horses who entered through your head, and then your heart, your beaten heart. These are the ones who loved you. They are the horses who have held you so close that you have become a part of them, an ice horse galloping into fire. V. Explosion The highway near Okemah, Oklahoma exploded They are reasons for everything Maybe             there is a new people, coming forth being born from the center of the earth, like us, but another tribe. Maybe             they will be another color that no one has ever seen before. Then they might be hated, and live in Muskogee on the side of the tracks that Indians live on. (And they will be the ones to save us.) Maybe             there are lizards coming out of rivers of lava from the core of this planet, coming to bring rain to dance for the corn, to set fields of tongues slapping at the dark earth, a kind of a dance. But maybe the explosion was horses, bursting out of the crazy earth near Okemah. They were a violent birth, flew from the ground into trees to wait for evening night mares to come after them: then                 into the dank wet fields of Oklahoma then                 their birth cords tied into the molten heart then                 they travel north and south, east and west then                 into wet while sheets at midnight when everyone sleeps and the baby dreams of swimming in the bottom of the muggy river. then                 into frogs who have come out of the earth to see for rain then                 a Creek woman who dances shaking the seeds in her bones then                 South Dakota, Mexico, Japan, and Manila then                 into Miami to sweep away the knived faces of hatred Some will not see them. But some will see the horses with their hearts of sleeping volcanoes and will be rocked awake past their bodies to see who they have become.

We watched her grow up. She was the urgent chirper, Fledgling flier. And when spring rolled Out its green She’d grown Into the most noticeable Bird-girl. Long-legged and just The right amount of blush Tipping her wings, crest And tail, and She knew it In the bird parade. We watched her strut. She owned her stuff. The males perked their armor, greased their wings, And flew sky-loop missions To show off For her. In the end There was only one. Isn’t that how it is for all of us? There’s that one you circle back to — for home. This morning The young couple scavenges seeds On the patio. She is thickening with eggs. Their minds are busy with sticks the perfect size, tufts of fluff Like dandelion, and other pieces of soft. He steps aside for her, so she can eat. Then we watch him fill his beak Walk tenderly to her and kiss her with seed. The sacred world lifts up its head To notice — We are double-, triple-blessed.

Praise the rain; the seagull dive The curl of plant, the raven talk— Praise the hurt, the house slack The stand of trees, the dignity— Praise the dark, the moon cradle The sky fall, the bear sleep— Praise the mist, the warrior name The earth eclipse, the fired leap— Praise the backwards, upward sky The baby cry, the spirit food— Praise canoe, the fish rush The hole for frog, the upside-down— Praise the day, the cloud cup The mind flat, forget it all— Praise crazy. Praise sad. Praise the path on which we're led. Praise the roads on earth and water. Praise the eater and the eaten. Praise beginnings; praise the end. Praise the song and praise the singer. Praise the rain; it brings more rain. Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

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.

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.

My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world. I’ve heard New York, Paris, or Tokyo called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For instance, that fool crow, picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy strips of fat. Just ask him. He doesn’t have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter—he perches on the blue bowl of the sky, and laughs.

for Desiray Kierra Chee In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for those who would climb through the hole in the sky. My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens. For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet. The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit. In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it. Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace. Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our children while we sleep. Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born there of nuclear anger. Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to disappear. We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to them by their personal names. Once we knew everything in this lush promise. What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav- ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood. An imperfect map will have to do, little one. The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s small death as he longs to know himself in another. There is no exit. The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a spiral on the road of knowledge. You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way. They have never left us; we abandoned them for science. And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry. You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing. Fresh courage glimmers from planets. And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns. When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us. You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder. A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the destruction. Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our tribal grounds. We were never perfect. Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans. We might make them again, she said. Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. You must make your own map.

Invisible fish swim this ghost ocean now described by waves of sand, by water-worn rock. Soon the fish will learn to walk. Then humans will come ashore and paint dreams on the dying stone. Then later, much later, the ocean floor will be punctuated by Chevy trucks, carrying the dreamers’ decendants, who are going to the store.