{"id":2965,"date":"2019-03-22T00:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T04:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2965"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:43:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:43:31","slug":"march-22-grace-when-life-turns-mean-joy-harjo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2019\/03\/22\/march-22-grace-when-life-turns-mean-joy-harjo\/","title":{"rendered":"March 22 – “grace” when life turns mean – Joy Harjo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, \u00a0March 22, 2019<\/p>\n

In my local world, we are gathering at our university on 6 Mile Road gathering to send Sally Baker on her passing from this life\u00a0and grieve an undergrad\u2019s unanticipated death this week. \u00a0A soul friend engaging the South Dakota blizzard now in a second week of deep mud on the back roads of Pine Ridge. \u00a0Another soul friend listened to my hard stories and then told me that she was still awake at 3 a.m. as she tried to pay down the debt of intense overwork still unfinished. \u00a0Still another friend lies in traction in week two after falling and breaking his pelvis. \u00a0These are some of the front-page headlines from unanticipated crises and the wounds they\u2019ve generated just lately.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been meditating this morning about what poem to suggest to readers of this \u201cWork Day\/Hard Time\u201d poetry list and changed my mind three times. \u00a0Finally, I’ve settled on Joy Harjo, another soul friend of many years. \u00a0We posted her famous \u201cShe had some horses\u201d on March 4. \u00a0Today\u2019s poem is more geographical with hard winter edges in a prairie town which clothes winter\u2019s winds with kinship and meanness both. \u00a0Naming the poem \u201cGrace\u201d can remind a reader that contemplating ordinary reality during a hard patch of time can call out courage and a mystical attentiveness to our human condition.<\/p>\n

To each of my close kin who have told me hard stories these past two weeks, I wish we could all gather in a kitchen with some Detroit Bold \u201c8 Mile\u201d fresh roasted coffee, and tell each other how we are doing during this hard patch of living. \u00a0I am imagining that you, and all the list\u2019s readers, could stand some good strong coffee and some good strong company. \u00a0We are, good days and mean days both \u201cbeautiful,\u201d \u00a0\u201cbrave,\u201d and \u201cbeloved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have blest weekend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pine Ridge Blizzard 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post \u00a0\u2013 \u00a0\u201cGrace<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway
\nin the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze
\nimaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks.<\/p>\n

The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat
\ndreams, and we couldn\u2019t stand it one more time.<\/p>\n

So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment
\nwalls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us,
\nin the epic search for grace.<\/p>\n

Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a
\nseason of false midnights.<\/p>\n

We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey.<\/p>\n

And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with
\ncoffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.<\/p>\n

I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from<\/p>\n

memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance.<\/p>\n

We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the
\nhope of children and corn.<\/p>\n

I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t; the next season was worse.<\/p>\n

You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south.<\/p>\n

And, Wind, I am still crazy.<\/p>\n

I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, \u00a0March 22, 2019 In my local world, we are gathering at our university on 6 Mile Road gathering to send Sally Baker on her passing from this life\u00a0and grieve an undergrad\u2019s unanticipated death this week. \u00a0A soul friend engaging … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2965"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2969,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965\/revisions\/2969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}