Earth Day: April 22, 2015

Mid-America Prayer

Standing again
within and among all things,
Standing with each other
as sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers,
daughters and sons, grandmothers and grandfathers--
the past and present generations of our people,
Standing again
with and among all items of life,
the land, rivers, the mountains, plants, animals,
all life that is around us
that we are included with,
Standing within the circle of the horizon,
the day sky and the night sky,
the sun, moon, the cycle of seasons
and the earth mother which sustains us,
Standing again
with all things
that have been in the past,
that are in the present,
and that will be in the future
we acknowledge ourselves
to be in a relationship that is responsible
and proper, that is loving and compassionate,
for the sake of the land and all people,
we ask humbly of the creative forces of life
that we be given a portion
with which to help ourselves so that our struggle
and work will also be creative
for the continuance of life,
Standing again, within, among all things
we ask in all sincerity for hope, courage, peace,
strength, vision, unity and continuance.

-- Simon J. Ortiz --
from Woven Stone




Simon J. Ortiz is an Acoma Pueblo Native American who was born and raised near Albuquerque, New Mexico and grew up speaking the Acoma tongue.

Simon Ortiz: Hawk

Hawk

Hawk
sweeps
clear through
the background
which is sky
and mountain ledge,
--Old Chuska Mountain,
my friend, shelter--
His immense knowledge
of wind,
his perception
of circling slow wind,
his edge of wing
on air trail

straightens then suddenly
overhead,
directly above us,
the pines.

This man, he knows
what he is doing.

-- Simon Ortiz --
from Woven Stone


What would it be like to fly like this hawk?

I remember standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and watching birds fly, first maybe ten feet off the ground where I was standing and then, beyond the edge where I couldn't go.  What would that be like, to have the ground maybe ten feet below and then suddenly drop away to hundreds of feet below?  What would that be like?

Simon J. Ortiz: The Boy and Coyote

The Boy and Coyote

for a friend, Ed Theis, met at VAH
Fort Lyons, Colorado, November
and December 1974

You can see the rippled sand rifts
shallow inches below the surface.
I walk on the alkalied sand. 
Willows crowd the edges of sand banks
sloping to the Arkansas River.

I get lonesome for the young aftenoons
of a boy growing at Acoma.
He listens to the river,
the slightest nuance of sound.

Breaking thin ice from a small still pool,
I find Coyote's footprints.
Coyote, he's always somewhere before you;
he knows you'll  come along soon.
I smile at his tracks when are not fresh
except in memory and say a brief prayer
for good luck for him and for me and thanks.

All of a sudden, and not far away,
there are the reports of a shotgun,
muffled flat by saltcedar thickets.
Everything halts for several moments,
no sound, even the wind holds to itself.
The animal in me crouches, poised immobile,
eyes trained on the distance, waiting
for motion again.  The sky is wide;
blue is depthless; and the animal
and I wait for breaks in the horizon.

Coyote's preference is for silence
broken only by the subtle wind,
uncanny bird sounds, saltcedar scraping,
and the desire to let that man free,
to listen for the motion of sound.

 -- Simon J. Ortiz --
from Woven Stone

A quiet moment of reflection for a man and recollection of a similar moment as a child.  I remember times when I've been out hiking and hearing a gun shot and the sudden silence that follows.  Like Ortiz, I, too, crouched and waited, waited for what I don't know, but waited for something.  Something was out there that was inimical to life--killing because killing was fun. 

Simon Ortiz: May 27, 1941

                 Earth Woman
                                                                                                                                 for Joy

                 This woman has been shaping
                 mountains
                 millions of years and still
                 her volcanoes erupt
                 with continuous mysteries.

                How gentle
                her movements, her hands,
                soft wind,
                warm rain,
                the moving pain
                of pleasure

                we share.

                -- Simon J. Ortiz --

I wonder about " How gentle/ her movements, her hands," though, when I consider volcanoes, which Ortiz mentions and earthquakes, which he doesn't.  Could he be speaking of a human woman also?
       
                        
from Woven Stone

Simon J. Ortiz: Small Things Today

Small Things Today
 at my Hesperus Camp

 
Had a tortilla with some honey
at midafternoon.  It was good.
Wished I had some chili.

Smell of apples, wet fields;
in back of the blue tent
is a box of last season's
Animas Valley apples; soon,
it will be another Fall.

Wind blows, shakes the tarp,
water falls to the ground.
The sound of water splashing.

Several hours ago, watched
a woodpecker watching me.
We both moved our heads
with funny jerks.

Rex and his sad, dog eyes.

Somebody looking around in a field,
looking for lost things.

Notice bean sprouts growing.
They're very pale and nude.

Rex doesn't like chicken livers,
but gizzards are okay.

-- Simon J. Ortiz --
from Woven Stone


Small things, little things, all sorts of unconnected things, but now linked together. I wonder how many of these small things he would have noticed if someone else had been there with him.  Sometimes others are a distraction.

Simon J. Ortiz: May 27, 1941--

Both poems come from

Simon Ortiz: Woven Stone
The University of Arizona Press, Tucson and London



The Dedication from the book:

For my children,
Raho Nez, Rainy Dawn, and Sara Marie,
and their children--
and their children's children henceforth:

The stories and poems come forth,
and I am only a voice telling them.
They are the true source themselves.
The language of them is the vision
by which we see out and in and all around.


Frequently duties require doing things one doesn't want to do, right now, but they must be done--even if one isn't sure of the goal or why it is obscure.



Evening Beach Walk

I don't really feel like walking
at first
but somehow feel I must
since I have come
this far
to this edge,
and so I walk.

The sun is going downwards
or rather one point changes to another,
and I know I am confronting
another horizon.

A dog comes sniffing at my knees
and I hold my hand to him,
and he sniffs, wags his tail
and trots away to join a young couple,
his friends, who smile as we meet.

I look many times as the sun sets
and I don't know why I can't see
clearly the horizon that I've imagined.
Maybe it's the clouds, the smog,
maybe it's the changing.

It's a duty with me,
I know, to find the horizon
and I keep on walking on the ocean's edge,
looking for things in the dim light.

-- Simon J. Ortiz --




This is the poem that comes directly after "Evening Beach Walk." I wonder if there's a connection here.

A Patience Poem for the Child
That is Me

Be patient child,
be patient, quiet.
The rivers run into the center
of the earth
and around
revolve all things
and flow
into the center.
Be patient, child,
quiet.

-- Simon J. Ortiz --

Simon J. Ortiz: May 27. 1941--

"Simon J. Ortiz (born on May 27, 1941 in Albuquerque, New Mexico is a Native American writer of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renasssance. He is one of the most respected and widely read Native American poets.

Ortiz, a full-blooded Acoma Pueblo, is a member of the Eagle or "Dyaamih" Clan. He was raised in the Acoma village of McCartys (or "Deetzeyaamah"), and spoke only Keresan at home. His father, both a railroad worker and a woodcarver, was an elder in the clan who was charged with keeping the religious knowledge and customs of the pueblo." (above quotation from the Wikipedia entry on Ortiz)

I thought I would post two of his poems today: the first is about Ortiz with his father and the second is Ortiz with his own son.


My Father's Son

Wanting to say things,
I miss my father tonight.
His voice, the slight catch,
the depth, from his thin chest,
the tremble of emotion
in something he has just said
to his Son, his song:

We planted corn one Spring at Aacqu--
we planted several times
but this one particular time
I remember the soft damp sand
in my hand.

My father had stopped at one point
to show me an overturned furrow,
the plowshare had unearthed
the burrow nest of a mouse
in the soft moist sand.

Very gently, he scooped tiny pink animals
into the palm of his hand
and told me to touch them.
We took them to the edge
of the field and put them in the shade
of a sand moist clod.

I remember the very softness
of cool and warm sand and tiny alive
mice and my father saying things.





Speaking

I take him outside
under the trees,
have him stand on the ground.
We listen to the crickets,
cicadas, millions years old sound.
Ants come by us.
I tell them,
"This is he, my son.
This boy is looking at you.
I am speaking for him."

The crickets, cicadas,
the ants, the millions of years
are watching us,
hearing us.
My son murmurs infant words,
speaking, small laughter
bubbles from him.
Tree leaves tremble.
They listen to this boy
speaking for me.


I wonder what Ortiz's father was saying and what Ortiz's son was saying for him.