Native American Songs and Poems Read Online Free

world others still fear
Ko-ko-has, the protector of our dreams.

This Blessing
    Barney Bush [SHAWNEE / CAYUGA] for Ryan
    Out in the blue shadows of the porch
a 3 a.m. quarter moon the first
summer triad nearly done
I am who i am in this chilled night of
stars and imagine the voices of relatives
their flesh and blood melded with
Ohio River earth i hear their whispers
clustered among the smokey road of
the Milky Way I draw its breath
inside me and pray for the hour upon
us all
    Â 
    I am who i am who i was made to be
though i have recreated myself a hundred
times over one for each escape from
the tentacles of oppression and each
time i have smelled the fragrance of
broken earth gathered a mussels shell for
the long sleep for this oldest blood that
runs through our veins
    Â 
    Each night in this loneliness away from my
homeland i thank the spirit of this
D’neh landscape for its open door dens’gdawah 18
and the door to this house that
welcomes refugees from the American Dream
and the dark medicine of greed
self destruction and the dark vanity that
mumbles with the voices of chaos
    Â 
    Each morning i face the sun and pray its
giver of light to bless all the relatives
to bless all this homeland
all those caught between the razors of
men and women
to bless this day
this moment.

Cedar Swamp
    Gogsigi / Carroll Arnett [CHEROKEE]
    Where all the good things are.
    A redtail’s nest
forty feet up the east side
of a white pine.
    The old,
old whitetail buck who’s
hunted me these twelve
Novembers—he’s not the same
one, nor am I.
    Chickadees
in their black caps, as
amiable as the bluejays
are belligerent, feed on
partridge berries.
    Hemlock
more than a hundred feet
tall, mutilated years ago
by some fool’s hacking
a large X in its north bark,
a sapling long before Columbus
got lost.
    And how many
red squirrels chattering at
the west wind sifting through
tree tops.
    Snyder is right:
the woods have time.
    Nothing
can hurt me here.

Eagle Poem
    Joy Harjo [MUSCOGEE]
    To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

lines from a pariah notebook
    Lance Henson [CHEYENNE]
    1.
    yesterday a small path of sunlight on a porch
in turin
now so far from the agony of aloneness
there are circling birds above a wheat field
a wind moves among small blue flowers
    Â 
    lost in a graceless age
i cannot find my belongings
a spider web hangs
holding tiny drops of rain
above a river
    Â 
    darkness leans from itself
listening for the remnant of light
a crow flies past
in its claws
something stolen from a dream
    2.
    a bird watches my shadow
and sitting under a blurred leaf
i recall a floating mirror where your face
was melting into me
    Â 
    these are moments of terror where innocence
is held in exile
words broken and bruised lay
around the prophets
    Â 
    im trying to find a cigar in a dark rented room
flashing lights through the curtains
waking up in a rainstorm
outside the window it is a normal berlin morning
    Â 
    she turns to me telling me we are really in boston
i watch small flowers growing out of a mountain
remembering the scent of morning frost
in an oklahoma field
    May 25, ’95
Luxembourg

Naming the Animals
    Linda Hogan [CHICKASAW]
    After the words that called legs, hands,
the body
of man out of clay and