<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">How to Write a Poem in a Time of War</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">You can’t begin just anywhere. It’s a wreck.</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> Shrapnel and the eye</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Of a house, a row of houses. There’s a rat scrambling</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">From light with fleshy trash in its mouth. A baby strapped</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">to its mother’s back, cut loose.</div><div class=""> Soldiers crawl the city,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">the river, the town, the village,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> the bedroom, our kitchen. They eat everything.</div><div class="">Or burn it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">They kill what they cannot take. They rape. What they cannot kill</div><div class=""> they take.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Rumors fall like rain.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> Like bombs.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Like mother and father tears</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">swallowed for restless peace.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Like sunset slanting toward a moonless midnight.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Like a train blown free of its destination. Like a seed</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">fallen where</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">there is no chance of trees or anyplace for birds to live.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">No, start here. </i> Deer peer from the edge of the woods.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> We used to see woodpeckers</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The size of the sun, and were greeted</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">by chickadees with their good morning songs.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We’d started to cook outside, slippery with dew and laughter,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> ah those smoky sweet sunrises.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We tried to pretend war wasn’t going to happen.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Though they began building their houses all around us</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> and demanding
more.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">They started teaching our children their god’s story,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A story in which we’d always be slaves.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">No. Not here.</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">You can’t begin here.</i></div><div class=""><i class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><i class="">This is memory shredded because it is impossible to hold with words,</i></div><div class=""><i class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><i class="">even poetry.</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">These memories were left here with the trees:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The torn pocket of your daughter’s hand-sewn dress,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">the sash, the lace.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The baby’s delicately beaded moccasin still connected to the foot,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A young man’s note of promise to his beloved—</div><div class=""> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">No! This is not the best place to begin.</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Everyone was asleep, despite the distant bombs.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> Terror had become the familiar stranger.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Our beloved twin girls curled up in their nightgowns,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> next to their father and me.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">If we begin here, none of us will make it to the end</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">Of the poem.</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Someone has to make it out alive, sang a grandfather</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">to his grandson, his granddaughter,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">as he blew his most powerful song into the hearts of the children.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There it would be hidden from the soldiers,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Who would take them miles, rivers, mountains</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> from the navel cord place of the origin story.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">He knew one day, far day, the grandchildren would return,
</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">generations later over slick highways, constructed over old trails</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Through walls of laws meant to hamper or destroy, over stones</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">bearing libraries of the winds.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">He sang us back</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">to our home place from which we were stolen</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">in these smoky green hills.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i class="">Yes, begin here.</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Joy Harjo </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>