Poetry Friday

Earlier in the week, I reviewed Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s cancer memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet. Caryn’s latest blog post features a poem which is very beautiful and the last two lines of which I have been repeating to myself for the past few days.

It is written by N. Scott Momaday, a Native American writer from Oklahoma, and a Pulitzer-prize winner whose novel House Made of Dawn led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into mainstream literature.

The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee 

I am a feather on the bright sky

I am the blue horse that runs in the plain

I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water 

I am the shadow that follows a child

 I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows 

I am an eagle playing with the wind 

I am a cluster of bright beads 

I am the farthest star 

I am the cold of the dawn 

I am the roaring of the rain 

I am the glitter on the crust of the snow

I am the long track of the moon in a lake 

I am a flame of four colors 

I am a deer standing away in the dusk 

I am a field of sumac and pomme blanche 

I am an angle of geese in the winter sky

 I am the hunger of a young wolf 

I am the whole dream of these things 

You see, I am alive, I am alive 

I stand in good relation to the Gods

 I stand in good relation to the earth

 I stand in good relation to everything that is beautiful… 

You see, I am alive, I am alive