The Prisoner’s Song

*     * *     * The third arrow flew upward and stuck we rode back sun birds bedeviled the great stem its reflected words fast thunder hills a molten mass small clouds of stones green rushes waylaid spirits onto lava beds post removed stone broken face turned down to earth *    * *    * I dropped out the little hangnail blanket of a door sun strapped to my back so everyone could feel I was sinking *    * *    * I dried out woke up sprouted wings and flew away *    * Looking Glass is dead The circular blue paper is the sky We see some green spots which are pleasing Are the commissioners clear as I am? I gave them a blue flag which they pretended to cherish I live in hopes I do not have two hearts The Illinois River will rise A single warrior to write beyond without me Death at the hands of the long guns Did I say death? Or the springs are drying up? Find the break where blood runs clear Through the love you bear your gallant little band *    * “Not to reverse history but to draw out the strength” * Write in the corridor to be no speaking Sing in the hall to be no dancing Cry in the street to be no leading Break into the house to be no sleeping Feel in the closet to be no running Fight in the dome to be no screaming Lie down in the dark to be no changing *    * Are the commissioners clear as I am? The dampness of night pierces my shield. Two dead men push a stick through my buttonhole. The sun looks down on me as complete. I want you to look and smile — red with iron black. With all of my heart I thank my black-robed friends for their kindness. Columns of steel rise. I was glad to hear the black robes had given you this shimmer of elongated nights, left to waver in the void. They know how to die in battle. They are a twist in the black mirror, that river between the city and the mist. We will produce no sane men again. They come back different and the same. They roam over hills and plains and wish the heavens would fall. You issued the first soldiers and we only answered back, seeking air. I have sent many words that were drowned along the way. The wind is full of bottles and the air aggressive, a red feather placed into black hair. * Joy Harjo in a 1989 interview with Lewis MacAdams