If you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you. Or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned.
Joy HarjoRemember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.
Joy HarjoSomeone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts
Joy HarjoI have more questions than answers in this world as do most poets and writers. The field of memory we exist in is absolutely encompassing and is both a question and answer. It is memory that provides the heart with impetus, fuels the brain, and propels the corn plant from seed to fruit.
Joy HarjoAt least I've had to come to that in my life, to realize that this stuff called failure, this stuff, this debris of historical trauma, family trauma, you know, stuff that can kill your spirit, is actually raw material to make things with and to build a bridge. You can use those materials to build a bridge over that which would destroy you.
Joy Harjo