Poet Warrior

by Joy Harjo

For the poets, dreamers, visionaries, and risk takers who planted light in the field of darkness so we could rise up For our children, great-grandchildren, and all those who follow generation by generation in the story of becoming For the water spider, who, when the earth was covered with water, carried an ember on her back so we could make fire to keep the story going. For Owen Chopoksa Sapulpa, who walks close to me in the story

To imagine the spirit of poetry is much like imagining the shape and size of the knowing. It is a kind of resurrection light; it is the tall ancestor spirit who has been with me since the beginning, or a bear or a hummingbird. It is a hundred horses running the land in a soft mist, or it is a woman undressing for her beloved in firelight. It is none of these things. It is more than everything. “You’re coming with me, poor thing. You don’t know how to listen. You don’t know how to speak. You don’t know how to sing. I will teach you.”

In the tradition of the Old Ones, all children are deemed as ours. We are all related. Or I am speaking to you in the future, when you are lost in the story and I have crossed the bridge of time into tomorrow.

It was not my thought; it was the biker’s thought. I began to follow all of my thoughts and was surprised how many didn’t belong to me. And how many had threads to ancestors, relatives, strangers, even plants, elements, and animals.

A story could destroy someone’s life or make someone else a hero. This story circle was a powerful place.

I HAVE TOLD SOME OF these stories many times, and you may have heard some or most of them already. Memory can compress and expand. Arms and legs can stick out. Some stories are demanding. They will find no rest until they are told once more, like a child wanting to hear the same story over and over again, even though they know how it’s going to end. The stories tap you on the shoulder, pull at your shirt, begging for attention again. The more years you gather, the more stories you have that want to be retold. But it’s the same ones that often haunt you. It’s why we return to our childhood home over and over again in memory, to the same rooms, the same lands, the same songs on the radio.

I loved words. How they felt in my mouth. I would taste them. Sing them. I would experiment saying them over and over, frontward and backward, for the way sound felt in my mouth and ears, and for the rhythms as they moved through my body. This was a quiet ritual, when I was alone.

When I re-read Posey’s poem “Assured,” I imagine it is spirit food for young poets and artists trying to figure out the path of becoming a poet when there appears to be none. I imagine myself the ages of my grandchildren, taking this poem to heart when the future doesn’t feel so assured. In the poem, we all stand up in the flickering of life that can only happen with dark and bright, pain and rest, wrong and right, and the worst and the best. ASSURED Be it dark; be it bright; Be it pain; be it rest; Be it wrong; be it right— It must be for the best. Some good must somewhere wait, And sometime joy and pain Must cease to alternate, Or else we live in vain.

Girl-Warrior was lonely For the poetry-talk of the Old Ones. They spoke in metaphor, A way of language that alerted her imagination To the presence of mystery Where there was always a light on in the mica windows Of her soul’s house Where knowledge did not depend on words Of faulty human languages. In one of time’s rooms, a place she liked to visit She played, as all babies do, with sunlight on her fingers. She was a tiny weaver, a dreamer. The Old Ones always gather around the baskets Holding the little ones, Admiring them, reminding them Of their legacy of honor and beauty Each one of them, all colors, all sizes, All cultural expressions, all creations Worthy of love.

AS I NEAR THE LAST doorway of my present life, I am trying to understand the restless path on which I have traveled. My failures have been my most exacting teachers. They are all linked by one central characteristic, and that is the failure to properly regard the voice of inner truth. That voice speaks softly. It is not judgmental, full of pride, or otherwise loud. It does not deride, shame, or otherwise attempt to derail you. When I fail to trust what my deepest knowing tells me, then I suffer. The voice of inner truth, or the knowing, has access to the wisdom of eternal knowledge. The perspective of that voice is timeless.

I AM OBSESSED WITH MAPS and directions. The key to my internal map appears to read something like this: East: A healer learns through wounding, illness, and death. North: A dreamer learns though deception, loss, and addiction. West: A musician learns through silence, loneliness, and endless roaming. South: A poet learns through injustice, wordlessness, and not being heard. Center: A wanderer learns through standing still.

Then speak. Grow poetry in the debris left behind by rage. Plant so there is enough for everyone to eat. Make sure there is room for everyone at the table. Let all of us inhabit the story, in peace.

There is no one way to God, no one correct spiritual path, no one way to write poetry. There is no one roadway, no one-way Bering Strait, no one kind of flowering plant, no one kind of tiger, no one way to knowledge. Diversity characterizes this planet, this galaxy, this universe.

Death is beautiful, she sang, as she left this story behind her. Even her bones, said time Were tuned to beauty.

I was learning that you cannot save anyone unless they want to be saved. You could lose everything, even yourself, in your failed efforts.

I was hungry for ritual. Ritual creates belonging. We are all in a ritual marked by sunrise, daylight, sunset, night, and moon phases. We also move within the ritual of the changing of seasons, either fall, winter, spring, and summer, or dry and rainy seasons. Our cultural practices are arranged according to these earth rituals. We all need rituals of becoming, in which we are given instructions that define our relationship with becoming, with our relatives, those sharing the whole world around us. This is how it was meant to be, for those coming up, at all stages of our becoming in this life. In these times, however, of degradation of our physical, mental, and spiritual sources of nourishment, we are losing ourselves and our children. Until we understand and act as if we are the earth, then each of us will experience the pain of separation from sacred knowledge, from ourselves.

They tell her that every seven years marks a renewal, a shift, and a test. Seven is considered a sacred number. Within it are the four directions, above, below, and within. It makes a complete cycle.

In our Mvskoke tribal traditions, adolescence is a time of teaching and celebration, the Old Ones say. “As you enter this doorway of womanhood,” they tell her, “you must keep the fire going of vkvsvmkv, or spiritual belief. You must seek and acquire a spiritual understanding of life. Your relationship with your Creator is central. You must tend it with quiet and communion. Turn your eyes and ears inward and listen. Begin every morning, tending this fire.

“Emetvl’hvmke is community. Your body is a community of organs, all living with consciousness, that work together to house you in this story. Community is those with whom you live, from home to school, to your tribal nation, city, or state. You must remember to place community interest and benefits ahead of individual and personal gain. “Always be kind and humble. Eyasketv is humility. No one is above the other. “Vrakkueckv means respect. Respect this gift of life, and in doing so we respect ourselves and others. “Fvccetv is integrity. Be honest. Tell the truth. Keep an ethical stance. If you sense that someone calling themself “friend” is not your friend, then be honest with yourself and act accordingly. “Emenhonretv tayat translates as trust. Take responsibility for every act, thought, or dream. “Hoporrenkv is the continual gaining of wisdom. Listen. Study hard, beloved granddaughter. “En’homahtetv is leadership. We are all put here to be leaders, within ourselves, our families, and our communities. Be a leader. “Do not forget that we are here and will always be here for you. You can call on us at any time. We love you.”

We are meeting here in a sacred place. Healing is a sacred art. I have been watching you and see that this work as a nursing assistant matters to you. Always take care of this gift I perceive in you—I see it in the way you look after the patients. I have no doubt you will do well in your profession. Remember us here and come back and see us.

Poetry is a tool for navigating transformation, and we needed poets and poetry to make community and inner change. What led me toward the practice of poetry as a tool for justice was hearing the poetry of Simon Ortiz, an Acoma poet, as he read his original poetry on a local radio station. Until hearing him, I didn’t know that we Natives could write poetry that was of our lives, our struggles, our revelations. Ortiz’s poetry was personal, political, and historical, spoken in everyday language used in our tribal communities.

Ortiz introduced me to the poetry of Leslie Marmon Silko from Laguna Pueblo. I didn’t know she was a novelist and short story writer. I knew her first as a poet.

Ceremony,

One of my earliest poems commemorated the short life of the young Navajo activist Alva Mae Benson, whom I admired as she worked quietly poised behind the scenes, often with a baby on her hip, organizing and supporting various events on behalf of the quality of life for community people.

However, I questioned how poetry had appeared in these indigenous lands before colonization; and as a way to decolonize my approaches to poetry, I looked about for poems written in English by poets whose roots and cultures predated English-speaking colonizers. I found a chapbook called Ride Me, Memory, which was written by the poet Kofi Awoonor and published in 1973 by the Greenfield Review Press. Awoonor, who was born in 1935 and died in 2013, was Ghanaian, of the Ewe people.

Creating was prayer. I followed one word after another. One image and then another. Here on a tangled rectangle of a page stood a dreaming house. Here I made a room in which I could speak and say whatever came to me to speak. Here I could sing, and it would not be forbidden to be: breathing and singing girl, history, the myth of dying and returning, a burning bird with a comet tail, a baby who could not stop crying, a girl running away, too light, too dark, too wrong, too right, taken for a ride on a moonlight night, a woman with children on her back running, always running uptight, outta sight, if you’re brown get down, down, down— I decided right then, during those long nights, that if my creative work did anything in this world, I wanted Indians to be seen as human beings.

WE KEEP OUR VIBRATION HIGHER by prayer, by kindness, by taking care of what we were given to do, by cleaning ourselves of negative thoughts that originate within or come from others, by cleaning with water, by humility, by being in the real world, away from concrete and square buildings, by speaking only that which holds truth.

There you are, voice, said Poet Warrior as she began Writing poetry because there was no other way to speak. It was unlike any voice from within her. It wasn’t her little girl voice, or the defensive Teenage girl voice. Or the tamped down so I don’t get hurt voice. Or the leave me alone voice. She didn’t know this voice at first. She watched it emerge from afar. Admiring it and at once fearful of it. It was a red bird on a branch of wind. It was a whirling rainbow In the hand of a child. It was a trail of ancestors, walking and on horseback Approaching and crossing A raincloud in ever changing light. Where did you come from, she asked the voice? If you follow me, said the voice, without words You will know where I came from, who I am And where I am going in a time made of willow branches. And the voice kept going, and Poet Warrior kept following no matter Her restless life in the chaos of the story field.

Meridel Le Sueur,

The Last Song

After she read the poem “Love Poem,” I anonymously called out from the audience, “Read it again.” I had never been so brave as to speak out in an audience, but I also had never experienced such bravery in a poet. Her bravery inspired mine. I had not heard a poem so blatantly sensual since the “Song of Solomon” in the Bible. Speak earth and bless me with what is richest make sky flow honey out of my hips rigid as mountains spread over a valley carved out by the mouth of rain.

She taught me that there is no separation between being a poet and being a mother and a lover. All are warrior roles. Audre Lorde’s wisdom songs folded into the consciousness of my poetry. They tell me to this day that there is no end to the quest for justice, for knowledge, and remind me to make poems to hold everything that slips past the failure of memory, of love.

When I write, those old voices inspire me, and surprise me with what they know. Maybe that’s how most wisdom works. Sometimes it can be corralled into print, in languages in books, but it lives more abundantly when spoken and welcomes a place to live on earth.

Momaday’s poem, and perhaps every poem, establishes itself as a kind of “I am” assertion. A poem exists because it says: “I am the voice of the poet or what is moving through time, place, and event; I am sound sense and words; I am made of all this; and though I may not know where I am going, I will show you, and we will sing together.”

Every poem has poetry ancestors. My poetry would not exist without Audre Lorde’s “Litany for Survival,” without Mvskoke stomp dance call-and-response, without Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck,” without Meridel Le Sueur or N. Scott Momaday, without death or sunrise, without Walt Whitman, or Navajo horse songs, or Langston Hughes, without rain, without grief, without—

this place named Earth in English, or Ekvnvcakv, which is Mother Earth in Mvskoke.

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.

I WILL NOT NAME ALL the teachers. Some do not want to be named, and some remain nameless. Others would not call me a student because we were standing apart from each other, or we were friends, or both—yet, they taught me. Those stern and unforgiving teachers were the toughest and were the ones from whom I probably learned the most. Some teachers are places, are oceans and mountains. Some are insects crawling the earth or flying. I am still learning. It is never ending, this inner search for knowledge.

IT’S RAINING IN HONOLULU There is a small mist at the brow of the mountain, Each leaf of flower, of taro, tree, and bush shivers with ecstasy. And the rain songs of all the flowering ones who have called for the rain Can be found there, flourishing beneath the currents of singing. Rain opens us, like flowers, or earth that has been thirsty for more than a season. We stop all of our talking, quit thinking, to drink the mystery. We listen to the breathing beneath our breathing. We hear how the rain became rain, how we became human. The wetness saturates and cleans everything, including the perpetrators Of the second overthrow. We will plant songs where there were curses.

FROG IN A DRY RIVER When you talk with the dead You can only go as far as the edge of the bank. I heard more than one frog singing. She came to me more than once in dead Sleep. We used to drink, and she doesn’t want anyone to tell. I met the king of the frogs once perched on the lip of the ditch. The water had been let down for the summer for the crops And we camped out nearby, with singers, the ones who knew The oldest songs. Said the frog as he pitched his favorite pillow behind his Aching back It’s hard getting old, and soon we will all be dead. He sang as we sat together and watched The human traffic hiking by. The jealousy beast lives too among us frogs, he mused. I watched it going across in a yellow boat, toward the Land of the dead. It had six rowers to haul the sharp-tongued. We are never free of ourselves, not here or in froggy heaven. Then the river spoke up. She’d had enough of the disregard, The theft. I’m not dead, she said. I wanted to learn a song from the frog. The frog leaped in, and My mind followed. I started this poem. To argue with the living is hard enough, forget the dead. I will end here, instead.

Poet Warrior stood at the doorway of time. She held the child of the seventh generation in her arms Adjusted the soft blanket to see her face To glimpse what this one was bringing with her to share, In the way she took every child, grandchild, and great-grandchild Into her arms to welcome them, to bless them During her time walking on the earth. Poet Warrior smiled as she thought: she looks Japanese. She resembled her daughter Rainy. Poet Warrior sang into the baby a song that would give her strength, And sustenance, would always call her ancestors to stand behind her No matter the trials, no matter history and heartbreak— Then she walked with her into time To deliver the baby to the earth story that needed her.