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Studies in American Indian Literatures 16.4 (2004) 89-92



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Morning Star Song

There is a revolution going on; it is very spiritual and its manifestation is economic, political, and social. Look to the horizon and listen.
Simon Ortiz, From Sand Creek
Simon, I want to thank you in this way.
I want to honor you for what you have done for us.1
I don't want to use the language of academia
or its forms
because I want to thank you from the place where you touch me . . .
somewhere in my spirit.
You spoke to Tsis-tsis-tas sorrow
and I saw your word-magic
ease the hardness in the eyes of tomorrow.
You have taken our wounds and showed us
their counterparts
in each other,
from place to specific place,
from tribe to tribe,
from man to woman to child,
from generations past into the future.
You took our Aunties and Uncles,
writers from many tribes, [End Page 89]

Click for larger view
Figure 1
Beadwork by Bobbi Ann Blackbear. (Photo courtesy of the author.)
[End Page 90]
and showed them a road,
back in Al . . . bur-quer-que,
back in the 70s.
You put their feet on a path
and held their hands,
pulled them along into song
and re-story-ing the Peoples.
Yes, I know you all had your tears,
Your moments of cloudy anger,
but Love was at the center of it all,
and fire spread from your belly to theirs.
We still warm our hands at it now.
It still creeps through our palms,
en nos brazos,
en nos corazones,
and flames out in our tongues,
filling the air with smoke, cinder, and new growth.

You have gifted us—Wa-do.
You have fathered us—Ma-do.
You have mothered us—Ya-ko-ke.
You have guided us—Ni-a'-she-men.

Tonight, when I look up,
You are there.

I will follow you until morning,
where, transformed,
our children will map trails by you
for seven generations more.

Kimberly Roppolo, of Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek descent, is assistant professor of native studies at the University of Lethbridge and the associate national director of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. Her recent publications include "Symbolic Racism, History, and Reality: The Real Problem with Indian Mascots," in Genocide of the Mind: An Anthology of Urban Indians, edited by MariJo Moore; and "The Real Americana," a poem in This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. She is married and has three children.

Endnote

1. The Cheyenne look to the Morning Star to find their way, and that is how they regrouped after the massacre at Sand Creek. Because of the impact of From Sand Creek on my Cheyenne students, I thought this was an appropriate metaphor for Simon. Also, Simon has guided us all—he really is the one who broke ground and guided the whole American Indian literary renaissance [End Page 91] in Albuquerque in the seventies. Where would any of us be without him? Moreover, he taught us all to look beyond a narrow tribalism and see what we have in common with each other, with the world. The moccasin in the illustration is a Cheyenne Morning Star pattern.



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