TORRENTIAL DESERT RAIN

..Poetry By Lyla June..

Torrential Desert Rain

© Lyla Johnston 2014 All Rights Reserved

For my baby niece, Azéé’.

Author’s Note All my life I've thirsted for truth like a madwoman lost in the desert thirsts for a drop of rain. Every now and then, in nature and in the loving words and deeds of human beings, I would find it. In these moments, the Niłchʼi Diyin (Divine Wind) would powerfully and beautifully surge through my veins like a flash flood of hope. This empyrean downpour ensued whenever I saw someone, just like me, click into a state of absolute compassion. These monsoons of truth would begin to flow whenever I saw a human being ring out their essence like a brazen star and stand unashamed of their brilliance, beauty and ability to love. Suddenly, delicately, undeniably, these experiences would remind me who I am, who we all are. The nourishing waters that poured forth from modern-day prophets like Martin Luther, Winona LaDuke, Desmond Tutu, Wangari Maathai, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, India.Arie and Lauryn Hill helped me to understand why a soul would wrap itself in flesh, depart its mother's womb and roam a place as painful as the earth. We do this to reveal the darkness as the illusion that it is and stand as the masterpieces that we are. I believe this is what we are here to do: Shine together like the stars in the sky, fall together like drops of rain upon the waiting earth to awaken dormant seeds, water dry mouths and nourish the hearts of so many desert creatures. This is the torrent of ecstasy that can come with being two-legged, strong-willed and open-hearted. It is in times like these that I thank the Creator for the majesty of the People and for my eyes to behold it. These moments of inspiration and hope are what I strive to offer in my poetry and art—moments suffused with a sense of remembering the beauty that is, the beauty that has always been. I may not know who you are but I can say with certainty that in this moment I hold a mighty compassion for you. My prayer is that you might find in these words the beauty and solace that comes from a desert rain. -Lyla June Johnston

Table of Contents

Preface

Genesis

Hozhó

Be Warm

Osheana

Spending Time

Fight Good

Genesis II

In the Wake

Donning Flesh

Take Time

Call Me Human

Long Walks

Together Again  

Preface Civilized women do not roll in the grass. Civilized women do not sing to the plants. Civilized women do not brush her fingers through the stream. No, that is the stuff of poets. So then… let us be poets. And not civilized women.

Genesis In the beginning there was the word. He wove worlds from these words. We will weave worlds from these words. So craft every casual conversation carefully as a playwright does. Because we aren’t playing make believe. You see, we make what we believe. This is not a poem. This is the cradle of creation. I am not a poet. I am a saxophone. You are symbols slapped together. She is the sitar. And we are the music of creation. And so sweet Creator: Strum me like strings. Beat me like drums. Like wings… Yes, I am the woven. No, I am not the weaver.

Yes, I am the dream. And yes, the Dream is dreaming. This is not poetry. This is alchemy.

Hozhó It is dawn. The sun is conquering the sky and my grandmother and I are heaving our prayers at the horizon. This morning she is teaching me the meaning of hozhó. Although there is no direct translation from Diné Bizaad (the Navajo language) into English every living being knows what hozhó means. Hozhó is every drop of rain every eyelash every leaf on every tree every feather on the bluebird's wing Hozhó is undeniable beauty. It is every breath that we give to the trees. And every breath they give to us in return. Hozhó is reciprocity. And my grandmother knows this well for she speaks a language that grew out of the desert floors like red sandstone monoliths like arms out of the earth that reach into the sky praising creation for all its brilliance. Hozho is remembering that you are a part of this brilliance. It is finally accepting that (yes) you are a sacred song that brings the Diyin Diné'é

(the gods) to their knees in an almost unbearable ecstasy. Hozho is re-membering your own beauty. And my grandmother knows this well for she speaks the language of a Lukachukai snowstorm the sound of hooves hitting the earth on birthdays for my grandmother is a midwife and would gallop to the women in labor and she is fluent in the language of suffering mothers of joyful mothers of handing glowing newborns to their creator. Hozhó is an experience. But it is not something you can experience on your own the eagles tell us as they lock talons in the stratosphere and fall to the earth as one. Hozhó is interbeauty. And my grandmother knows this well for she speaks the language of the Male Rain which shoots lightning boys through the sky pummels the green corn children and huddles the horses against cliff sides in the early afternoon. She also speaks the language of the Female Rain which sends the scent of dust and sage into our hoghans and casts rainbows in the sky. Us Diné, we know what hozhó means! And you!

You know what hozhó means! And deep down we know what hozho does not mean... Like the days we walk in sadness. The days we live for money. The days we live for fame. Like the day the conquistadors came climbed down from their horses and asked us if they could buy the mountains. We knew this was not hozhó because we knew you could not own a mountain. But we knew we could make it hozhó once again! So we took their swords and we took their silver coins and we melted them with fire and buffalo hide bellows and recast them into beautiful squash blossom jewelry pieces and strung it around their necks! We took the helmets straight off their heads and transformed it into a fearless beauty. Hozhó is the healing of broken bones. Hozhó is the prayer that carried us through genocide and disease. It is the prayer that will carry us through global warming and through this global fear that pitches shadows in our minds.

This morning my grandmother is teaching me something very important. She is teaching me that the easiest (and most elegant) way to defeat an army of hatred is to sing it beautiful songs until it falls to its knees and surrenders. It will do this, she says, because it has finally found a sweeter fire than revenge. It has found heaven. It has found HOZHÓ. And so my grandmother is talking to the colors of the sky at dawn and she is saying: hózhǫ ́náházdlíí' hózhǫ ́náházdiíí' hózhǫ ́náházdlíí' beauty is restored again… It is dawn, my friends. Wake up. The night is over.

Be Warm

I beg you: understand the river. She only wants you to feel her flow. She only wants you to drink of her. Give her your heart, if you dare. She wants to remind you what it is like to be bathed by a loving mother. You can be one of her children But You must be bold enough to go beneath the covers and be warm. You must be brave enough to let her brush your hair back with the palm of her hand as you fall asleep. You must be courageous enough to stand in her eddies and cry— cry until you can cry no more. You must be humble enough to let her remind you that you are beautiful and wise, that you are wounded and tired, that you will be fine come morning time. Her waters burn your resolve to be unloved.

Your unrelenting insistence that you do not deserve compassion and joy. She will burn it all. I sat on the banks of her splendor once and this is what I heard: “My daughter, I looked. I really did.

all inside my mind and these are the most precious words i can find

so listen carefully:

i don't want to know who you are.

i just want you at my kitchen table drinking something warm.

you do not need to sing for me.

you do not need to dance for me. you do not need to undress for me.

you do not need to say anything clever. you do not need to do anything.

I just want you to

be loved and

be warm.”

Osheana

Nothing feels this sweet. Everything we've built Everything we've held Getting lost and falling away like seaweed in the undertow. Nothing feels as sweet as learning to let it all go. Clouds soaring into each other and falling apart. Recycled fantasies and dreams dropping against the parched canvas of the earth. Soaking in the candied aspirations of a trillion souls. Masterpieces crafted and blown apart just as quick by these wondrous flames. Old growth forests and cigarette embers and my great grandmother's name. A pre-Columbian kiss on the banks of the Mississippi. An ancient fern unfurling silently in the sunlight. Our majestic exodus from warlock politicians. A flash of lightning waving hello and waving goodbye. Or even the time a crane fell madly in love with a hummingbird. Everyone thought a blazing sunset as surreal as this would freeze into the sky forever! Who knew to just let it be and let it un-be?

What we do know is this: When all the stories that have ever walked upon the earth are finally taken by the tide, God will fall back into Her bed and weep into the sheets feeling sweet and wonderful. Rolling memories in Her mind until they are no longer jagged and dangerous. Just as the ocean rolls shards of glass until they feel sacred again. Bloom. Wilt. Bloom. Wilt. Bloom.

Nothing so sweet as this heartbeat or the invisible sound of Her nectar rushing through our lives.

Spending Time The gold-panner sings in the river all day. Sometime later, he takes his last breath with all his belongings packed and his hat on the rack. He wants to buy meaning in this moment but can’t. It’s free.

Fight Good Hunting for horse placenta in the forest. There is lore that if you slather it on the newborn foal the mother will recognize the scent and allow it to nurse. Getting in touch with the rawness of life. Apparently, milk, urine, poop and baby ponies all come out of the same general area of a female horse. Miraculous. The first milk of a mare is the most nutritious containing anti-bodies the pony will need for the rest of its life. They call it colostrum. This angry mare would starve the foal before she let it suckle on her milk-makers. Horse abuse thoroughly stripped her of any mothering instincts. "Have you ever milked a horse?" I am asked. “I have not.” Milking a wild horse every three hours is daunting but when a foal’s life is at stake there is no time for fear. It's 3:30 AM and I'm in the ring. I close my eyes and acknowledge the seventh sacred direction: Chokan Wakan.

The Sacred Center. Just then a fearful flash pierces my mind's eye. A white mare with lips curled back teeth bared, neck stretched, ears down tail switching, hooves stomping. Shhhhhhh… listen. God is answering a prayer spoken so many moons ago. In junior high I vowed to be a peacenik, beatnik, vegetarian, do-gooder. A self-proclaimed nun at the age of twelve and afraid of confrontation. I studied Ghandi. I breathed in Satya—love and truth. But I choked on Graha—force and might. I asked Creator, "Why must we fight to love?" It's 3:30AM and I'm learning that Ghandi was infinitely more fierce than the whole of the British Army. Do you have what it takes to belt out the Song of Love in the face of a gun barrel? Do you have what it takes to stand your ground against a bucking mare? When a foal's life is at stake there is no time for fear.

I will fight for this.

Genesis II In the beginning there was the word. Flares of white fire burning in the void. Her sparkling phosphoric dream escaping through a cosmic rebellion. Her scintillating fountain of love defying the laws of silence. Holographic refractions of her wild imagination searing through the night in three million directions. Finally coming to rest in the marrow of our bones. We are that supernova that exploded long ago. We walked into the valley together as one not quite sure what we would become. A child born from the flesh of the sea rising on two legs to stand and be. Coyote spirit bites into our heart. The pain is pregnant with a child named Forgiveness. Here we are today all different and all the same, shedding a broken system, and rewriting our name. Birthing the world again like a juvenile falcon that falls from its nest and flies for the very first time.

In the Wake A man awakes in Christchurch. In Haiti. In Japan. In Chile. And suddenly all the money in his pockets is worthless compared to his daughter’s beating heart. Late one night you prayed for death. The earthquakes ask you: Are you sure?

Donning Flesh I. Standing on the ledge of suffering a spirit decides to walk the gauntlet of humanhood Naked and armed with nothing but trust, enters through a sacred passageway of the cervix. Donning flesh. Breathing air. Speaking words. Facing blades in the name of the next seven generations. Nothing will send a soul into the labyrinth but the cry of his children lost in the maze. Go ahead. Get lost. Everybody does. Everybody will. It is the only way you will find the way out. And when you do,

please bring the others with you. We are tired of watching them suffer. II. The place where they do not measure time in seconds. They measure time in lessons. The day you learned to tie your shoes. The day you learned to pray for your enemies. All these teachings wrapped in our skin. This is the vibrant land of danger and bravery where we can only ever discover that we are breathtaking risk-taking miracles equipped with razor-tipped faith and an insatiable appetite for growth and grace, whatever it takes. Spirit never dies but only gives way to the changing landscape. It takes on a new face and changes it's last name but is forever fueled by an Original Flame. This is the place where they do not measure time in seconds.

They measure time in lessons. Every flesh wound a blessing. This is where you will be born. This is where you will die. This is where you will be born. This is where your heart will learn to fly. III. Nothing will make you run for your mother like the piercing wind. Once, after many cold nights of drowning myself in the sweetest syrup of over-stimulation and hollow gratification, I was picked up off the street. Great, strong arms lifted my fragile frame and carried it into the hoghan where I was wrapped in the blankets of a Bear Mother's love. Deprived of the bread of truth, driven mad by the chemicals, by the hunger, I was shocked at the beauty and ease of this hearth. Slowly my muscles calmed and I drank from the goblet of safety for the first time in decades. I sobered and looked around me to find a council of Grandmothers and Grandfathers discussing how I would be brought to life…

A dash of cedar on the coals and my frame was cleansed of what is not. Encouraged by their compassion I rose up on my feet and stood as what is. Beauty, preciousness, courage, compassion. It is ours. Guidance home and re-birth by the very hands of warriors who have walked the gauntlet and felt the blade’s empty touch.

Take Time Take time to listen to the waves… Feel each folded droplet becoming immersed in its mother. Feel the multitude of effervescent prayers roll into one another and amount to this wondrous, perpetual roar echoing in our skull. Experiment with the idea that maybe everything matters… Each remnant bubble on the shore that lies in the wake of the resigning waves. Each breeze-thread in the great tapestry of oceanic winds. Every pelican bobbing out on the sea with lungs that breathe and eyes that see. Even the crab shell fragments and retired seaweed strewn on the sand. Try guessing what the cormorant's favorite time of day is… Could it be mid-morning? When sunbeams glint along the water like her flapping wings? Or could it be the evening? When everything is easy, everyone's bellies are full and the sun quietly smiles like a proud father? Or could it be the dusk? When the horizon is flushed with a roseate hue upon the endless sea? When your feathers begin to hold you in tighter and you wonder if you are dreaming big enough these days? Sit and see if the porpoise might jump up and grace your retinas like an ancient myth that reaches forward in the time and touches your life. Experiment with loving yourself unconditionally by getting lost in the velvet sound of her song that goes on and on and on…

Call Me Human I. From birth we etch these lines. Engrave them in your mind. By the rockets’ red glare. The bombs bursting in air. We’ll make an imaginary country as real as your skin. II. They always called me an “American.” And so I said to them: “Can you show me America? Can you tell me where it is? I have been looking searching for it all my life. Looking for the reason why my people had to die. But the only place I can find America is inside your mind.” They replied, “Turn towards the flag. There it is. Right there. Don’t you see it? Stand. Raise your right arm.” And so I said to them: “I pledge allegiance to an illusion called the United States of America. And to the non-existent boundaries for which it stands. One deception, under a Christian god, with which we legitimize the genocide of its indigenous peoples.”

III. America does not exist. It is but an idea that men have obsessed over since 1776. An excuse that was used to manifest a reality that destroyed the destiny of Native civilization. America does not exist. It is but a psychological sickness we catch with years of exposure to public schools and baseball games raising hands to our hearts for a fairytale that it is anything more than a word. But once we believe America is real we believe we have a reason to steal a reason to kill. The Long Walk—1865. 9,000 Navajo marched with gun barrels at their backs. Herded like sheep for over 400 miles to their very own concentration camp. In the name of “America.” Wounded Knee Massacre—1890. U.S. Cavalry descends on a Lakota camp with 530 women and children. With red and white stripes blinding their sight they sunk bullets into the chests of children that may as well have been their own. In the name of “America.” On the twenty dollar bill you’ll see the man who marched 15,000 Cherokee,

pregnant women, their children, the elderly, from their Georgia homeland to Okalahoma. In the name of “America.” Do we remember what has been done in the name of an abstract nation? Or has it all been buried with our hearts and our tongues? And i should not hate fireworks on warm summer nights. I should not hate a combination of colors. I should not hate dead men on paper money. I should not hate… So let me tell you that I love you. Dear soldiers. Dear president of the imaginary sates of America. Dear history teacher. Dear man behind the curtain. Let me tell you I love you. And I am leaving it in the past. But people hear me and separate your fact from fabrication this is the projection of our imagination onto the holy earth. We’ve drawn so many maps. We’ve put so many flags in the ground. We put labels on the land. We’ve draw imaginary lines in the sand. But know that this Earth is the foremother of your forefathers. She existed before Hancock and before Nixon. Before money. Before “America.” And she will exist long after “America” is forgotten.

Let us unite to remember what is real. Let us remember that humanity is real. A beating heart is real. The earth beneath us is real. But America is but a thought that has turned brothers into contenders. Histories into myths. Entire cultures into forgotten languages. And the free mind into a society, deceived. So please do not call me American. Do not call me a Native American. Please, call me human. And do not call this land America. If you listen hard she will tell you her true name. As the nighthawks dive at twilight. As the wolves howl at moonlight. As the waterfalls rage cascading. As the avalanches fracture breaking. She will tell us her true name with earthquakes that split states and break fences to remind us that she does not belong to us. But that we belong to her.

Long Walks We have been walking a long time. Up and over the sandstone, you will see her walking with a flower-print scarf wrapped around and tied at the chin. Through the dry arroyos you will see him walking with a staff in hand bringing the herd to the best of the worst. You will see their grandson walking too. Along the highway in the afternoon, getting to work or getting high. You will see kids walking off yellow buses back home through the dust and the sagebrush. You will see their uncle walking home from the power plant. Diné. People. You will see me walking near a gas station with my thumb out Searching the desert for my past Discovering how much it can hurt to remember. Following our journey to the corn and sunshine of Diné'tah. Through the four worlds.

Thousands and thousands of years ago. Before incarceration. Before assimilation. One hundred and fifty years ago. When 9,000 of us were bound and marched to Hwéeldi and after four years our survivors are released back into the sea of sand. Each with their own ration of goats and sheep, went out to farm like good little Indians do. A string of trading posts that wove us into America. Pulled tight against the fabric of capitalism, she walked to the post with her blanket each month in exchange for coffee grounds and lard like good little Indians do. My grandmother was told to forget her language. Melanin wrapped her in original sin. Her glottal stops became the slap of the ruler on the desk Next time her hands. Next time her face and a hardy scrub on the missionary floors like good little Indians do. Still we stand with pollen between our fingertips to greet the Dawn Holy People saying, “Today I will walk out Today everything negative will leave me. I will be as I was before. My words will be beautiful. I will have a cool breeze over my body. I will have a light body. Through the returning seasons, may I walk. On the trail marked with pollen, may I walk. In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.

In beauty I walk With beauty before me, I walk With beauty behind me, I walk With beauty above me, I walk With beauty all around me, I walk In beauty it is restored again.” It is hard to walk with beauty below us when the uranium tailings trickle down into our farms. It is hard to walk with beauty above us when the smokestacks are chugging into dusk and out of dawn. It is hard to walk with beauty all around us when hard soil meets hard drugs, cracked mud and cracked families. Still she stands with pollen between her fingertips to great the Dawn Holy People. We can fill her sky with black smoke But we cannot pollute her words We can mine the earth beneath her feet But we cannot excavate her soul. We can tie her, beat her body But you cannot touch her love That is hers. Eternally. And once we are done playing all our games She will come walking! Holding a prayer in her hands. And once we are done playing all our games She will come walking towards us!

Holding her heart wrapped in red cloth. A gift to us all.

Together Again I have learned what I can from staring at brick walls I have memorized the face of imprisonment every brick just a little bit different I have learned to seek and find the weaknesses in stone Where it crumbles Where it breaks I have learned to bask in the small rays of light that shine through the breach like a woman who is lost in the desert will try to drink the falling rain I have learned what I can Learned that with even just a spoon a woman can dig her way out of prison Seen God unravel in a moment what the darkness spent years knitting into our skin Following the hints of love I have seen the sky glimmers of what we are born for I have learned to love and accept those who become accustomed to confinement and even relish in the wild taste of iron bars I have even learned to love the mason who laughs with every flick of the spade I have searched the lines over and over like a mad woman thumbing in the dark for the Achilles Heal of the heart Praying that this façade might give in and we will all surrender to unity

I have learned how to push and press against the mortar with all my hope and all my might to bend, to break, to make this imagination crack open wide enough to envision my way out In dreams I have seen the buffalo stampeding through the chasm of our audacious faith and into the light I have learned to wield the machinery of compassion heaving words like cannonballs at the barriers that divide us I have learned to pulverize the silica the alumina the lime and iron oxide into a fine powder and with it spend my days laying down sand paintings trying to illustrate the beauty I see in each of you in our Creator in the love that sleeps within I have even held in my eyes liberation in real time women born into captivity step out into the sunshine seen men shed walls like the snake sheds her skin I have learned to dance to the deerhide drum after all our efforts ripen and fall like walls plunging

into a wondrous heap of dust! (I have learned to gather my strength when I realize there are many more miles of walls to go) I have learned what I can from living in these brick walls… But most of all what I have learned is to never ever give up For even stone and concrete cannot stand up to the eternal winds that beg for justice and incessantly sing this song of unity sweet Unity We are coming for you sister We have not forgotten your name We have not forgotten your name even after all these years.