The blessing of earthGod, every night is hard.Always there are some awake,who turn, turn, and do not find you.Don’t you hear them crying outas they go farther and farther down?
Surely you hear them weep; for they are weeping.I seek you, because they are passingright by my door.
Whom should I turn to,if not the one whose darknessis darker than night, the only onewho keeps vigil with no candle,and is not afraid—the deep one, whose being I trust,for it breaks through the earth into treesand rises,when I bow my head,faint as a fragrancefrom the soil.
Kindness
Before you know
what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
--Naomi Shihab Nye,
Lent 2025 by Kayleen Asbo
Today,
I begin my fast from
shame
and blame.
Today,
I will feast no more on
self mortification,
regret,
and despair.
If I plant myself firmly
In the soft, dark soil of humility
with the vow to speak no ill,
not even about myself,
who knows
how hope
might yet bloom
inside my
aching
human
heart?
SENDING YOU LIGHT by Melanie DeMore performed with Julie Wolf
Remember by Joy Harjo
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
- Joy Harjo is a poet and musician, and a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has published seven books of poetry, including: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and She Had Some Horses. Among Joy’s honors and recognitions are the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joy now resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico
