March 1, 2012

the blue bowl of the sky

My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world. I've heard New York, Paris, or Tokyo called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by it and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For instance, that fool crow, picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy scraps of fat. Just ask him. He doesn't have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter--he perches on the blue bowl of the sky, and laughs.

Joy Harjo

2 comments:

  1. Oh this is lovely. It comforts me to think of myself as the crow. That I peck away at my greasy scrap of fat. Foolish. But laughing.

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  2. "...he perches on the blue bowl of the sky, and laughs."

    What I wish I were doing. I will have to try it,

    as soon as the sky is blue.

    Cathy in Missouri

    *****

    Success is not final,
    failure is not fatal,
    it is the courage to continue that counts.

    {Sir Winston Churchill}

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