My spine crackles in between love and loss Politicians looking like overwatered prickly pear I look at you and I can feel the prickledįor years longer than something called a nation state She currently resides on Akimel O'odham land.Ī bright, boiling star, eyes, my waxy, sprinkled skin Originally from Shonto, Arizona, and raised in Flagstaff, McCrary received her MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry from Mills College and is now the owner and founder of Abalone Mountain Press, which is dedicated to publishing Indigenous voices. She is Red House clan born for Mexican people clan. McCrary is a Diné poet, zinester, and feminist. I will say I am from here, this desert, a home Language, after all, is the only sound it can hear Write another love letter to winter and call it by its real name The darkness? In it, we can’t see the cornfieldsĮmpty of corn or weeds growing in the abandoned mine. If the lights go off any one moment, would we fear If we say it is-the same goes for river or alcove The trees at the tree line are only a border There are no rules or boundaries out here It was an early frost followed by late heat The sun washed on morning needle and wrestled sap The field steps pink onto a hairline road Light the hardened meadow with a technology so ancient we call it language. This is the high desert, i.e., a place with light The desert is no sea its glimmer only black rockīeneath the rake and roll of cactus and canyon seedĪbout to happen or is happening or has happened turn possessives into antiquated vocabulary His first book is Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, a winner of the 2018 National Poetry Series. Skeets is a poet and teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, located within the Navajo Nation. Mother Earth has a spirit and she’s asking us to listen. Let us not drown in Mother Earth’s tears. We were shaped by fire, made from lightning andĭirt-covered hands that know when to ignite healing. Just for the optics of equity, diversity, and justice.įollow our lead for we have always been well versed in survival. Isn’t just a box one checks without due diligence, where co-management isn’t co-opted Where Indigenous consulting isn’t just a costume of freeĪnd informed consent, where consulting with tribal nations That tomorrow isn’t promised, but today we can return Unless we all take action for the climate to change.Īgainst the Age of Exploration and Extraction,Ī call for the Time of Reconciliation, the Now of Restoration We’ve had our land stolen and we’re losing it again When something is stolen, you want it returned. When you lose something, you hope it will be found. Today she burns desperate,įor all to resist fossil fuels, the drilling, and the black snake named Our Mother Earth holds our histories in her dirt.īut today, she burns not in the traditional ways once taught,Ĭontrolled and deliberate. Our grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, sisters, mothers, brothers, daughters, sons, children, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and ancestors. Conquest meant they saw our bodies as land,įull of resources waiting to be extracted and exploited. Our then-girl-grandmothers how to sew like machines.Ībout them not seeing us as human but as object,Ī thing. Pierced our tongues with needles then taught To the doorway out, life is about all our relations.īefore I was born, they tried to silence us, Of all living things and to honor life like the circle My mother taught me that water is the source When my mother says words are seeds and to be careful Traditional to the land and handled them with care.Įvery tree, plant, or rock has a spirit, she said “hear it.” So she tended the seedsĪs living beings, planted her garden full of foods The way the earth clung to her hands as if it were a part of her. I remember my grandmother was well versed in dirt, Until you push and claw your way through to acceptance.įor us, stories have always been for lessons. The pain as it echoes into the canyon of grieving. You see, the power of a single tear lies in the story. What must be done and that the sacrifices She currently lives on Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho lands in Colorado. She comes from an intertribal lineage of Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, where she is an enrolled citizen. Winder is an author, singer-songwriter, and motivational speaker, whose written works include the poetry collections Words Like Love and Why Storms are Named After People and Bullets Remain Nameless.
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