Dusky Dancer

Dusky Dancer

It’s dusk of yet another day.
It wasn’t an easy day, yet it was a blessed day.
There were mangos from the mango tree,
the sun came out to visit and give life,
and the earth once again supported us and gave us beauty
and a place to live.

I did not have to leave my refuge here on the side
of the Ko’olau’s overlooking Honolulu. No flight to catch,
no insecure security, no possible TB carrying passengers
coughing in my direction. And this house was surrounded
by singers: all kinds of birds, clouds, plants and insects,
each with their songs, most of them love songs,
just like humans, and they overruled the neighbor’s noise.
Her hearing is bad so she pumps up her music and television,
which is everything from popular Hawaiian hits
to Japanese pop to Korean soap opera.
She often plays the same song over and over and over.
We can hear everything up here on this slope.
I’ve heard fights and breakups, love trysts,
family celebrations, and once a mother tending
a sick child who coughed through the night.

It’s all here, and in a sense everywhere is here.
We’re in the same story wherever we are,
though the details might be different.
I’ve even heard my children cry from heartbreak,
though I have been a thousand miles away in physical distance,
even as I have felt their joys.

I’m convinced that the birth cord transcends time
and distance, and that women are anchors and bearers
of knowledge in a profound way, a way that scientists
have not gotten around to study because
most of their knowledge is pertinent only to the male body,
and their knowledge is rooted in three-dimensional
linear thinking. Most medical research is based on
the male physiology. Most knee implants, for instance,
are designed and manufactured for the male body,
not the female.

Joy Harjo June 2007