"I remember when there was no urge to cut the land or each other into pieces, when we knew how to think in beautiful. (Lines from Harjo's poem "Emerg… - Joy Harjo

FALLING FROM THE NIGHT SKY (a song) I was a star falling from the night sky I needed you to catch me I was a rainbow lifting from a dark cloud I needed you to see me You keep your eyes to the ground Walk that line she had to you. That path of patient expectation. Keeps you true to her undoing. My heart wore flowers and a red dress. The first time we kissed You smelled of happiness and moonlight We drove the night to tenderness. When you’re here we are the sun and the moon. In the land where promises come true. When you’re here, we share imagination No explanations. It’s just me, and you. You keep your eyes to the ground Walk that line she had to you. That path of patient expectation. Keeps you true to her undoing. I am a star falling from the night sky I need you to catch me I am a rainbow lifting from a dark cloud I need you to see me

No. I was not okay.
And neither was James Baldwin though his essays
Were perfect spinning platters of comprehension of the fight
To assert humanness in a black and white world.

"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"]"