Joy Harjo's Web Log

Joy Harjo posts reports here on her trips and other happenings.

Monday, September 17, 2007

When Your People Have Been Uprooted

Photo c Joy Harjo 2007

When your people have been uprooted from a land that carries your stories and history
You learn to carry that land in your heart.
And then you learn the depth of that heart, and know that it is deep enough to carry
the land that you imagined, and the imagining of the land of those who were forced to leave.
Any strife and pain from that tearing away ebbs away here.
A regenerative love is struck and rooted here.
And no matter the twist and turn of rough fate, we exist here, in this heartland
with our stories and the spirits of those stories, still guiding us along the way.
And these stories grow, just as we do. They live, they die, they are reborn again in the spring.

September 17, 2007

posted by Joy # 7:20 AM

Comments:

thank you for posting this. it gives me hope and validation. my family comes from mixed hawaiian, chamoru, european ancestry. and our roots been transported to this turtle island. my heart misses islands and languages i dont even know, not yet anyway. i write songs for them and my people and pray to stay connected. to feel connection to my heart. thank you again.

# posted by

Erica : 8:38 AM

I love when you give voice to the heart, the land, and the soul all bound together, which you do so beautifully.Have reread this several times and still i cry.

# posted by

marcie : 10:48 AM

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