These memories, and the stories in these words, might appear to exist in the long ago. In the short-root mind, a kind of mind of a people whose child… - Joy Harjo

In the short-root mind, a kind of mind of a people whose children don't even know the names of their great-grandparents, there is no past. Everything is right now. This kind of mind has its roots in the material culture, in what can be accumulated. My great-grandfather reminds me that we need to keep within the long-rooted mind. Because of the longer roots we have a larger structure of knowing from which to take on understanding.

All for that welcome home dance,
The most favorite of all — when everyone finds their way back together
to dance, eat and celebrate.
And tell story after story
of how they fought and played
in the story wheel
and how no one
was ever really lost at all.

Because who would believe
the fantastic and terrible story of all of our survival
those who were never meant
to survive?

"This morning when I looked out the roof window

before dawn and a few stars were still caught

in the fragile weft of ebony night

I was overwhelmed. I sang the song Louis taught me:

a song to call the deer in Creek, when hunting,

and I am certainly hunting something as magic as deer

in this city far from the hammock of my mother’s belly.

It works, of course, and deer came into this room

and wondered at finding themselves

in a house near downtown Denver.

Now the deer and I are trying to figure out a song

to get them back, to get all of us back,

because if it works I’m going with them.

And it’s too early to call Louis

and nearly too late to go home.

[from poem, "Song for the Deer and Myself to Return On"]"