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Painting by Shawn McNulty

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April 25, 2005 Honolulu Tuesday

A blessing rain awakens me in the dark before dawn.
I lift into the spirit of rain. It’s like the sweet urgency
of sex with a beloved, this rain.

We are home I tell my spirit who has momentarily become
the rain. We are home my arms tell my beloved who rolls close
sweetly to seal the absence.

Yesterday I traveled in the sky, over houses, businesses
and churches, over cornfields. And over rolling hills
of brush, trees and rivers and through the principalities
of birds, animals and various elemental kingdoms.
And above snowy mountains and wide palms of desert.

I flew over my mother’s house,
my sisters’ and my brothers’ houses.
And over my daughter’s house. I flew over babyhood,
childhood and the wilderness of bad decisions.

The last hours of the flight were through an eternity of blue
to make it home to this island.
This morning I woke
and I know where I am.


Joy Harjo