by Joy Harjo
Literary Day Among the Birds
Dark night at last has taken its flight,
Morn had come with her earliest light;
Her herald, gray dawn, had extinguished each star,
And gay banners in the east were waving afar.
That lovely goddess, Beautiful Spring,
Had fanned all the earth with her radiant wing;
“Had calmed the wild winds with fragrant breath,”
And gladden’d nature with an emerald wreath.
Within the precincts of the Bird Nation,
All was bustle and animation;
For that day was to witness a literary feast,
Where only Birds were invited guests.
The place of meeting was a leafy nook,
Close by the side of a sparkling brook.
Soon were assembled a merry band,
Birds from every tree in the land.
Mrs. Dove came first, in soft colors drest;
Then Mr. Canary, looking his best.
The family of Martins, dressed in brown,
And Mr. Woodpecker, with his ruby crown.
The exercises opened with a scientific song,
By the united voices of the feathered throng.
Then was delivered a brilliant oration,
By ’Squire RAVEN, the wisest bird of the nation.
Master WHIP-POOR-WILL next mounted the stage,
Trying to look very much like a sage.
Eight pretty green Parrots then spoke with art;
Though small, with credit they carried their part.
Again an oration by Mr. Quail,
Spoken as fast as the gallop of snail.
And lastly, Sir BLACKBIRD whistl’d off an address,
Of twenty odd minutes, more or less.
Then came the applause, so loud and long,
That the air echoed the joyous song.
But the sun was low, so soon they sped
To their quiet nests and their grassy beds;
And rocked by the breeze, they quietly slept,
Ere the firstling star in the blue sky crept.
JOHN GUNTER LIPE (1844–1862), Cherokee, fought during the Civil War in the Confederate army and was killed in battle in 1862. His poem “To Miss Vic” was written for Victoria Hicks, who later married his older brother.
To Miss Vic
I stand at the portal and knock,
And tearfully, prayerfully wait.
O! who will unfasten the lock,
And open the beautiful gate?
Forever and ever and ever,
Must I linger and suffer alone?
Are there none that are able to sever,
The fetters that keep me from home?
My spirit is lonely and weary,
I long for the beautiful streets.
The world is so chilly and dreary,
And bleeding and torn are my feet.
Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation.
JAMES HARRIS GUY (unknown–1885), Chickasaw. Before he died, Guy had agreed to write a book of legends and poems, but only four of his poems survive. His uncle Cyrus Harris was the first elected governor of the Chickasaw Nation.
The White Man Wants the Indian’s Home
Tishomingo, C.N., I. T., June 17th, 1878
A. B. Meacham, Washington, D.C.
Dear Sir:—To-day I picked up two copies of your Council Fire, being the first I have seen. I am a Chickasaw Indian, and in spite of the expressed contempt by the white man, I am glad of it. Are we not equal? Surely God made us so mentally as well as physically. If we stand behind the white to-day in education, is it our fault? No! had the United States Government kept its pledges toward us, our schools would now be in full operation.
There is sorrow in the Indian’s home to-day. They (the whites) say our land is “too good” for us; it is only fit for the whites. And unless brave men like you stand up for us, sooner or later we perish from the face of the earth, because we are Indians. I did not know before that there was a white man brave enough to stand up and say in the Capital, “the Indian has been wronged.” But he has been wronged, and bitterly wronged. It speaks volumes when a Senator can in the Senate-room challenge his people to produce one single instance of an Indian treaty being carried out faithfully toward the Indians.
Will you answer this? Have the five civilized nations done anything against the United States government since the Rebellion? If not, why is that United States continually trying to gain our lands? for all these Territorial bills are nothing else but levers brought to bear on the destruction of the Indians’ titles. Will you, and brave men like you, allow this? We are trying to live godly lives; but sometimes I feel like an old Chickasaw Indian to whom I was describing heaven. Among other things I told him all would be brothers; that we should all live together in peace. Judge of my astonishment when he replied, “Is the white man going there?” I told him yes. Then he said, “I do not want to go there; heaven too good for Indian; white man wants it all; so Indian have to go.” And he refused to listen to me any longer. Tell your government we are not drunkards or thieves; that we are doing the best we can for ourselves.
I send you a few lines expressing the sentiment of my people:
The white man wants the Indian’s home,
He envies them their land;
And with his sweetest words he comes
To get it, if he can.
And if we will not give our lands
And plainly tell him so,
He then goes back, calls up his clans,
And says, “Let’s make them go.”
The question in the Indian’s mind
Is, where are we to go?
No other country can we find;
’Tis filled up with our foe.
We do not want one foot of land
The white man calls his own;
We ask nothing at his hands,
Save to be alone.
Send me a copy of the paper and I will forward you a dollar.—
J. C. DUNCAN (1860–unknown), Cherokee, was a poet about whom not much is known, other than his one surviving political poem, “The Red Man’s Burden,” in which the illegible words are denoted with an X.
The Red Man’s Burden
Parody on Kipling’s Poem [“The White Man’s Burden”]
Look at the Redman’s burden
Place in thy Christian scales,
In the hands of Dawes Commission,
For that is what prevails.
Yes, look at the Redman’s burden,
That caused the “exiled son”
To “face the stormy waters,”
Seeking their golden mun.
“Half devil and half child” you call
The aborigines,
’Tis better far to be half child
Than be a devil all.
No “heavy harness” need be spent,
Nor “Christians” hide in wait,
Just keep a radical president,
And Curtis to legislate.
Behold the white man’s burden
Of gold and silver bullion,
Of Redmen’s scalps and broken vows
By hundreds, yes by millions.
Yet fill their mouths of famine xxx,
With bombshells and with grape,
For that’s the way all “Christians” do
Like Shafter did of late.
From Florida to Havana
One stride the goddess made,
To cheer the word “expansion,”
And in seas of blood to wade;
The xxxxxxx Philippine xxxxxx
In less than half a stride,
And the eagle’s wing o’er
The world xx in style to xxxxx.
From side to side that eagle xxxxxxxxxxx
Above the “image’s[?]” moan,
His beak upon the frozen beach[?],
His tail the torrid zone.
All for “Christianity’s sake,”
Quo
th Kipling, in his rhyme,
Perhaps he better poems make
Than truths every time.
Another portion yet is sought
The North Pole, so ’tis said
The problem yet has not been wrought
But will be live or dead.
To make a plain and easy way
For the white part of creation,
Publicly through the presses say,
It’s an Indian reservation.
White man, shake off thy burden,
’Tis enough they pride to yoke,
Give us back our freedom,
And return to thy British yoke.
Return our land and moneys,
Then Christianity take,
Return to us our innocence,
We never burned at stakes.
EVALYN CALLAHAN SHAW (1861–unknown), Mvskoke, lived in Wagoner, Indian Territory, where her father, Samuel Benton Callahan, was a leading figure in Creek politics and represented the Creek and Seminole Nations in the Second Confederate Congress.
October
October is the month that seems
All woven with midsummer dreams;
She brings for us the golden days
That fill the air with smoky haze,
She brings for us the lisping breeze
And wakes the gossips in the trees,
Who whisper near the vacant nest
Forsaken by its feathered guest.
Now half the birds forget to sing,
And half of them have taken wing,
Before their pathway shall be lost
Beneath the gossamer of frost.
Zigzag across the yellow sky,
They rustle here and flutter there,
Until the boughs hang chill and bare,
What joy for us—what happiness
Shall cheer the day the night shall bless?
’Tis hallowe’en, the very last
Shall keep for us remembrance fast,
When every child shall duck the head
To find the precious pippin red.
ALEXANDER POSEY (1873–1908), Mvskoke, was a poet, humorist, and journalist, who was politically involved in improving living conditions in Indian Territory. He reported for and in 1902–4 owned the Eufaula Indian Journal, the first Native daily newspaper, which had been founded in Eufaula, Oklahoma, in 1876. He is also known for his humorous political editorial columns written in local tribal dialect in the fictional voice of Fus Fixico. He died young by accidental drowning in the North Canadian River in 1908.
To a Hummingbird
Now here, now there;
E’er posed somewhere
In sensuous air.
I only hear, I cannot see
The matchless winds that beareth thee.
Art thou some frenzied poet’s thought,
That God embodied and forgot?
Tulledega
My choice of all choice spots in Indian lands!
Hedged in, shut up by walls of purple hills,
That swell clear cut against our sunset sky,
Hedged in, shut up and hidden from the world.
As though it said, “I have no words for you;
I’m not part of you; your ways aren’t mine.”
Hedged in, shut up with low log cabins built—
How snugly!—in the quaint old fashioned way;
With fields of yellow maize, so small that you
Might hide them with your palm while gazing on
Them from the hills around them, high and blue.
Hedged in, shut up with long forgotten ways,
And stories handed down from sire to son.
Hedged in, shut up with broad Oktaha, like
A flash of glory curled among the hills!
How it sweeps away toward the morning,
Deepened here and yonder by the beetling
Crag, the music of its dashings mingling
With the screams of eagles whirling over,
With its splendid tribute to the ocean!
And this spot, this nook is Tulledega;
Hedged in, shut up, I say by walls of hills,
Like tents stretched on the borders of the day,
As blue as yonder op’ning in the clouds!
To Allot, or Not to Allot
To allot, or not to allot, that is the
Question; whether ’tis nobler in the mind to
Suffer the country to lie in common as it is,
Or to divide it up and give each man
His share pro rata, and by dividing
End this sea of troubles? To allot, divide,
Perchance to end in statehood;
Ah, there’s the rub!
SAMUEL SIXKILLER (1877–1958), Cherokee, was born in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory and educated in Pennsylvania at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he was the class poet in 1895. In his anthology Changing Is Not Vanishing, editor Robert Dale Parker notes that Sixkiller’s grandfather, also named Samuel Sixkiller, served as high sheriff of the Cherokee Nation and captain of the United States Indian Police until he was ambushed and killed in 1886 while off duty.
To Class ’95
Farewell to dear class, to friends and to strangers,
Assembling here in our honor today,
To help Nature’s children—the wildflower rangers,
And make pure Americans from ocean to bay.
At last we have roamed from woodland to mountain;
From the murmur of pines and the emerald sea,
To drink of the pure—that life-giving fountain,
And bask in the sun of the noble and free.
Away from the plains where often in childhood,
From deep slumber waked by the music of rills;
Away from the glory and pleasure of wildwood,
Away from the perfume of flower-clad hills.
And still to our hearts, Nature clings as a brother;
We dream of repose by the streams we yet love.
Can light and advancement, our thoughts of these smother?
Of joys placed here by the Father above?
When shall the culture, the art and refinement
Drive from our minds, roving thoughts of the past?
Shall broad education, or savage confinement,
Conquer the Red Man now fading so fast?
Too soon are those features the emblems of power.
Too soon are they leaving his countenance bold.
Alas, they shall fade or to fierce foeman cower,
And die with the past as a tale that is told.
Sad be the day when the sun in his glory
Shall shine on the last of the noble Red Man
Or set for this race whose life is a story,
The true, the only American.
And now we must part, may it not be forever!
But if on this earth we can ne’er share our love,
God grant that the ties we have here had to sever,
May be reunited in that kingdom above.
STELLA LEFLORE CARTER (1892–unknown), Chickasaw, was the daughter of U.S. Congressman Charles David Carter. Her sister, Julia Carter Welch, was also a poet. The “Alfalfa Bill” Murray mentioned in Carter’s poem married a Chickasaw woman but was known as a segregationist, and a racist. He called out the National Guard forty-seven times as Oklahoma governor (1931–1935) for everything from policing the sale of University of Oklahoma football tickets to shutting down oil wells. Asked how to be successful in Oklahoma politics he said, “Never say anything good about the state of Texas.”
Inauguration Day
The cowboy and the farmer, in chaps and Sunday clothes,
Indian and country lawyer, and folks nobody knows,
Oil magnates, women in Paris gowns, a motley, strange array,
The high and low, the rich and poor, and in “The City” today.
All proudly pay their tribute to Oklahoma’s son,
“Alfalfa Bill,” they call him,
in half-admiring fun.
His roughened, weather-beaten face and careless dress proclaim
That he’s a real pioneer and worthy of his name.
Here is no man that men can rule; his virile, homely face
Shows scars of many battles—but of weakness not a trace.
Here is the poor man’s sponsor—he has known poverty.
His rugged, fearless honesty a child could plainly see.
They say he lacks in culture—yet an eager scholar he,
Of history and jurisprudence and lore of the tepee;
A typical Oklahoman—here’s to a native son!
God give him strength and wisdom to run well his race begun.
WINNIE LEWIS GRAVITT (1895–1974), Choctaw, graduated from the University of Oklahoma. She worked as a librarian and her poems were featured in Tushkahomman, the Red Warrior, a newspaper of Stroud, Oklahoma, published from 1935 to 1939.
Sippokni Sia
I am old, Sippokni sia.
Before my eyes run many years,
Like panting runners in a race.
Like a weary runner the years lag;
Eyes grow dim, blind with wood smoke;
A handkerchief binds my head,
For I am old. Sippokni sia.
Hands, once quick to weave and spin;
Strong to fan the tanchi;
Fingers patient to shape dirt bowls;
Loving to sew hunting shirt;
Now, like oak twigs twisted.
I am old. Sippokni sia.
Feel swift as wind o’er young cane shoots;
Like stirring leaves in ta falla dance;
slim like rabbits in leather shoes;
Now moves like winter snows,