Each of us is descended from poetry ancestors. It’s the same for any art, any occupation. There is a lineage of style, knowledge and culture passed f… - Joy Harjo

AN AMERICAN SUNRISE We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves, We Were surfacing the edge of our ancestors’ fights, and ready to Strike It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were Straight. Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We Made plans to be professional — and did. And some of us could Sing When we drove to the edge of the mountains, with a drum. We Made sense of our beautiful crazed lives under the starry stars. Sin Was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We Were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them: Thin Chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little Gin Will clarify the dark, and make us all feel like dancing. We Had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz I argued with the music as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June, Forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We.

Until the passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, it was illegal for Native citizens to practice our cultures. This included the making and sharing of songs and stories. Songs and stories in one culture are poetry and prose in another. They are intrinsic to cultural sovereignty. To write or create as a Native person was essentially illegal.

But your half-grin
is the only image that comes clear.
All the words lead to that