Eagle poem, by Joy Harjo

 Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92

with Leonard Bernstein  

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River.  Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

 

 

 

from How We Become Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001

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)