An American Sunrise
Joy Harjo
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Be who you are, even if it kills you. It will. Over and over again. Even as you live. Break my heart, why don't you?”
“The heart is a fist. It pockets prayer or holds rage.”
“I am a star falling from the night sky I need you to catch me I am a rainbow lifting from a dark cloud I need you to see me”
“Once there were songs for everything, Songs for planting, for growing, for harvesting, For eating, getting drunk, falling asleep, For sunrise, birth, mind-break, and war. For death (those are the heaviest songs and they Have to be pried from the earth with shovels of grief). Now all we hear are falling-in-love songs and Falling apart after falling in love songs.”
“We become lost, Unsteady. Take a deep breath, Pray. You will not always be lost. You are right here, In your time, In your place.”
“There are always flowers, Love cries, or blood. Someone is always leaving By exile, death, or heartbreak. The heart is a fist. It pockets prayer or holds rage.”
“Nobody goes anywhere though we are always leaving and returning. It's a ceremony. Sunrise occurs everywhere, in lizard time, human time, or a fern uncurling time.”
“All for that welcome home dance, The most favorite of all-- when everyone finds their way back together to dance, eat and celebrate. And tell story after story of how they fought and played in the story wheel and how no one was ever really lost at all.”
“To the destroyers, Earth is not a person. They will want more until there is no more to steal.”
“On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson unlawfully signed the Indian Removal Act to force move southeastern peoples from our homelands to the West. We were rounded up with what we could carry. We were forced to leave behind houses, printing presses, stores, cattle, schools, pianos, ceremonial grounds, tribal towns, churches. We witnessed immigrants walking into our homes with their guns, Bibles, household goods and families, taking what had been ours, as we were surrounded by soldiers and driven away like livestock at gunpoint. There were many trails of tears of tribal nations all over North America of indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed from their homelands by government forces. The indigenous peoples who are making their way up from the southern hemisphere are a continuation of the Trail of Tears. May we all find the way home.”
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Book Keywords:
death, prayer, celebration, self, being-lost, being, poem, andrew-jackson, indian-removal-act, unsteadiness, loss, trail-of-tears, individuality, anger, america, family, native-americans, life, leaving, poetry, heart, heartbreak, grief, native-american, lost, breathing, love, mourning, forced-migration, returning, celebration-of-life, indigenous-peoples, travel, rage
