What Music, by Joy Harjo

Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, II. Moderato
with Mstislav Rostropovich (1959)

...  ...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.


M'Girl at Rhizome Cafe, Vancouver BC Coast Salish Territory, June 20 2009



poem from She Had Some Horses (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983)