Joy Harjo Quotes

In the middle of all the tension and destruction, there is a laughter of absolute sanity that might sound like someone insane. Maybe laughter is the voice of sense. I always tell my students that you cannot take everything too seriously because at will kill you. If you carry bitterness and hatred around, it gives you arthritis, rheumatism, cancer. Certainly, I have to be aware of everything that is happening, but I can't let it kill me. (1994)

She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of
herself. It is a dizzy hole of water and the rich
live in tall glass houses at the edge of it.

In a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone,
Until somebody got out of line.

My innate impulse is healing, which is also standing up for justice, which can heal hearts and nations.

I Give You Back'

I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear. I release you. You were my beloved and hated twin, but now, I don't know you as myself. I release you with all the pain I would know at the death of my daughters.

You are not my blood anymore.

I give you back the white soldiers who burned down my home, beheaded my children, raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters. I give you back to those who stole the food from our plates when we were starving.

I release you, fear, because you hold these scenes in front of me and I was born with eyes that can never close.

I release you, fear, so you can no longer keep me naked and frozen in the winter, or smothered under blankets in the summer.

I release you
I release you
I release you
I release you

I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved,

to be loved, to be loved, fear.

Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash. You have gutted me, but I gave you the knife. You have devoured me, but I lay myself across the fire. You held y mother down and raped her, but I gave you the heated thing.

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't hold you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice, my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart my heart

But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid
of dying.

It seems es that the Native American experience has often been bitter. Horrible things have happened over and over. I like to think that bitter experience can be used to move the world, and if we can see that and work toward that instead of killing each other and hurting each other through all the ways that we have done it. (The world, not just Indian people, but the world.) JH: Sure, because we're not separate. We're all in this together. It's a realization I came to after dealing with the whole half-breed question. I realized that I'm not separate from myself either, and neither are Indian people separate from the rest of the world.

What a wild dilemma,
how to make it to the stars on a highway slick with fear

I've learned there are many genealogies. Within our family is a genealogy of rage. There is also a genealogy of justice. I would show you a map, but I am still searching the roadway for casualties.

Be who you are, even if it kills you.
It will. Over and over again.
Even as you live.

"Imagine if we natives went to the cemeteries in your cities and dug up your beloved relatives, pulled off rings, watches, and clothes, and called them "artifacts," then carried the bones over to the university for study so we could understand you. Consider that there are more bones of native people in universities and museums for study, than there are those of us living."

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate
the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries-

-Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in
this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other

earth, sky, stars circling
my heart

For the true warriors of the world, fighting is the last resort to solving a conflict. Every effort is made to avoid bloodshed. (p150)

Pass this love on, he'd say.
It knows how to bend and will never break.
It's the only thing with a give and take,
The more it's used the more it makes.

That love is the bridge that will cross the river home.
He'd be standing in the dark with no one listening.
How time blows steadily through the city, the trees.
Sing to this earth, sing, he sang.

I never got to wash my mother's body when she died.
I return to take care of her in memory.
That's how I make peace when things are left undone.