Sunday, February 20, 2022

JOY HARJO ~

 




Break My Heart


There are always flowers,

Love cries, or blood.


Someone is always leaving

By exile, death, or heartbreak.


The heart is a fist.

It pockets prayer or holds rage.


It's a timekeeper.

Music maker, or backstreet truth teller.


Baby, baby, baby

You can't say what's been said.


Before, though even words

Are creatures of habit.


You cannot force poetry

With a ruler, or jail it at a desk.


Mystery is blind, but wills you

To untie the cloth, in eternity.


Police with their guns

Cannot enter here to move us off our lands.


History will always find you, and wrap you

In its thousand arms.


Someone will lift from the earth

Without wings.


Another will fall from the sky

Through the knots of a tree.


Chaos is primordial.

All words have roots here.


You will never sleep again

Though you will never stop dreaming.


The end can only follow the beginning.

And it will zigzag through time, governments, and lovers.


Be who you are, even if it kills you.


It will. Over and over again.

Even as you live.


Break my heart, why don't you?



_____________________

Joy Harjo

An American Sunrise

Norton 2019