Joy Harjo

Today, we observe Indigenous Peoples' Day. Let’s celebrate with a poem by Joy Harjo (born May 9, 1951), poet, musician, playwright, and author.

Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and is winner of Yale's 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry.

She is the author of ten books of poetry including, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years, in addition to several plays and children's books and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior.

Eagle Poem

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.

--Joy Harjo

[from In Mad Love and War. Copyright © 1990 by Joy Harjo]