Last Day of National Poetry Month!
Apr. 30th, 2006 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhThe Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles Joy Harjo
There are strangers above me, below me and all around me and
we are all strange in this place of recent invention.
This city named for angels appears naked and stripped of anything
resembling the shaking of turtle shells, the songs of human voices
on a summer night outside Okmulgee.
Yet, it's perpetually summer here, and beautiful. The shimmer of gods
is easier to perceive at sunrise or dusk,
when those who remember us here in the illusion of the marketplace
turn toward the changing of the sun and say our names.
We matter to somebody,
we must matter to the strange god who imagines us as we revolve
together in the dark sky on the path to the Milky Way.
We can't easily see that starry road from the perspective of the crossing
of boulevards, can't hear it in the whine of civilization or taste the
minerals of planets in hamburgers.
But we can buy a map here of the stars' homes, dial a tone for
dangerous love, choose from several brands of water or a hiss of oxygen
for gentle rejuvenation.
Everyone knows you can't buy love but you can still sell your soul for
less than a song to a stranger who will sell it to someone else for a profit
until you're owned by a company of strangers
in the city of the strange and getting stranger.
I'd rather understand how to sing from a crow
who was never good at singing or much of anything
but finding gold in the trash of humans.
So what are we doing here I ask the crow parading on the ledge of
falling that hangs over this precarious city?
Crow just laughs and says wait, wait and see and I am waiting
and not seeing anything, not just yet.
But like crow I collect the shine of anything beautiful I can find.
There are strangers above me, below me and all around me and
we are all strange in this place of recent invention.
This city named for angels appears naked and stripped of anything
resembling the shaking of turtle shells, the songs of human voices
on a summer night outside Okmulgee.
Yet, it's perpetually summer here, and beautiful. The shimmer of gods
is easier to perceive at sunrise or dusk,
when those who remember us here in the illusion of the marketplace
turn toward the changing of the sun and say our names.
We matter to somebody,
we must matter to the strange god who imagines us as we revolve
together in the dark sky on the path to the Milky Way.
We can't easily see that starry road from the perspective of the crossing
of boulevards, can't hear it in the whine of civilization or taste the
minerals of planets in hamburgers.
But we can buy a map here of the stars' homes, dial a tone for
dangerous love, choose from several brands of water or a hiss of oxygen
for gentle rejuvenation.
Everyone knows you can't buy love but you can still sell your soul for
less than a song to a stranger who will sell it to someone else for a profit
until you're owned by a company of strangers
in the city of the strange and getting stranger.
I'd rather understand how to sing from a crow
who was never good at singing or much of anything
but finding gold in the trash of humans.
So what are we doing here I ask the crow parading on the ledge of
falling that hangs over this precarious city?
Crow just laughs and says wait, wait and see and I am waiting
and not seeing anything, not just yet.
But like crow I collect the shine of anything beautiful I can find.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 06:56 pm (UTC)And yay, glad you liked it.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 02:06 am (UTC):P
Danke. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 06:34 pm (UTC)we are all strange in this place of recent invention.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 12:31 am (UTC)We matter to somebody,
we must matter to the strange god who imagines us as we revolve
together in the dark sky on the path to the Milky Way.
So not the line I initially thought would work, but oh well.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 01:05 am (UTC)And hey, I just saw your sister Kelly in the airport.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 04:38 pm (UTC)My Thanksgiving was fine, but very boring. Nothing to make a story of. And happy anniversary!