Quotes: N. Scott Momaday(hero!)
Forms of the Earth at Abiquiu
I imagine the time of our meeting
There among the forms of the earth at Abiquiu,
And other times that followed from the one -
An easy conjugation of stories,
And late lunches of wine and cheese.
All around there were beautiful objects,
Clean and precise in their beauty, like bone.
Indeed, bone: a snake in the filaments of bone,
The skulls of cows and sheep;
And the many smooth stones in the window,
In the flat winter light, were beautiful.
I wanted to feel teh sun in the stones -
The ashen, far-flung winter sun.
And then, in those days, too,
I made you a gift of a small, brown stone,
And you described it with the tips of your fingers
And knew at once that it was beautiful -
At once, accordingly, you knew,
As you knew that forms of the earth at Abiquiu:
That time involves them and they bear away,
Beautiful, various, remote,
In failing light, and the coming of cold.
From the book In The Presence of the Sun © 1992.
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"If It Could Ascend
I behold there
the far, faint motion of leaves.
The leaves shine,
and they will shiver down to death.
Something like a leaf lies here within me;
it wavers almost not at all,
and there is no light to see it by -
that it withers upon a black field.
If it could ascend the thousand years into my mouth,
I would make a word of it at last,
and I would speak it into the silence of the sun.
From the book In The Presence of the Sun © 1992.
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Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon
the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up
to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from
as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon
it.
He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at
every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon
it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest
motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and
all the colors of the dawn and dusk.
For we are held by more than the force of gravity to the earth.
It is the entity from which we are sprung, and that into which
we are dissolved in time. The blood of the whole human race
is invested in it. We are moored there, rooted as surely, as
deeply as are the ancient redwoods and bristlecones.
From the book In The Presence of the Sun © 1992.
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| Our Beloved Earth - Poems - Poems: Authors - N. Scott Momaday - Page 2 |
Earth & I Gave You Turquoise
Earth and I gave you turquoise
when you walked singing
We lived laughing in my house
and told old stories
You grew ill when the owl cried
We will meet on Black Mountain
I will bring corn for planting
and we will make fire
Children will come to your breast
You will heal my heart
I speak your name many times
The wild cane remembers you
My young brother's house is filled
I go there to sing
We have not spoken of you
but our songs are sad
When Moon Woman goes to you
I will follow her white way
Tonight they dance near Chinle
by the seven elms
There your loom whispered beauty
They will eat mutton
and drink coffee till morning
You and I will not be there
I saw a crow by Red Rock
standing on one leg
It was the black of your hair
The years are heavy
I will ride the swiftest horse
You will hear the drumming hooves.
From the book In The Presence of the Sun © 1992.
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Mogollon Morning
The sun
From the sere south
Splays the ocotillo. Cold withdraws. Still I stand among
Black winds.
The long,
long bands of rock,
Old as wonder, stand back.
I listen for my death song there
In rock.
Old earth
In long shadows,
You pray my days to me.
I keep the ways of tortoises.
Keep me.
From the book In The Presence of the Sun © 1992.
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The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee
I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs on 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 the 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 earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive
From the book In The Presence of the Sun © 1992.
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