Friday, April 22, 2011

The Morning Reading: "there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form"


For Earth Day and Good Friday:

My House is the Red Earth
by Joy Harjo

My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world. I’ve heard New York, Paris, or Tokyo called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For instance, that fool crow, picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy strips of fat. Just ask him. He doesn’t have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter—he perches on the blue bowl of the sky, and laughs.

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2 comments:

Rivka Jr. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rivka Jr. said...

Beautiful. I'm grateful to Joy Harjo for writing it and to this site for introducing me to the poem.

 
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