Tuesday
I missed Indigenous Peoples’ Day yesterday so here’s a poem to mark the occasion. According to Wikipedia, Joy Harjo is a seventh-generation descendant of Monahwee (also known as Menawa) of the Muscogee people as well as a former U.S. Poet Laureate.
While American neofascists call for a blood and soil politics (and also celebrate Columbus Day), Harjo’s “Remember” shows what it really means to be rooted in the earth. In her vision, this earth welcomes all races and ethnicities:
Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth.
This is because, in Harjo’s greater vision, we are all one:
Remember you are all people and all people are you.
Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.
Nor does it end with people:
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.
And then there are the vast reaches of vast interstellar space:
Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night.
A spirit blows through creation and has done so since the beginning of time:
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.
All that is beautiful and vibrant arises out of this spirit, the dance language that is life.
It’s a vision far richer than anything Columbus imagined.
Remember
By Joy HarjoRemember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people are you.
Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
