"I have missed the guardian spirit of the Sangre de Cristos those mountains against which I destroyed myself every morning I was sick with loving and fighting in those small years. In that season I looked up to a blue conception of faith, a notion of the sacred in the elegant border of cedar trees becoming mountain and sky.
This is how we were born into the world:
Sky fell in love with earth, wore turquoise,cantered in on a black horse. Earth dressed herself fragrantly, with regard for the aesthetics of holy romance...Their love decorated the mountains with sunrise, weaved valleys delicate with the edging of sunset. This morning I look toward the eas tand I am lonely for those mountains though I've said good-bye to the girl with her urgent prayers for redemption. I used to believe in a vision that would save the people carry us all to the top of the mountain during the flood of human destruction. I know nothing anymore as I place my feet into the next world except this: the nothingness is vast and stunning, brims with detailsof steaming, dark coffee ashes of campfires the bells on yaks or sheep sirens careening through a deluge of humans or the dead carried through fire, through the mist of baking sweet bread and breathing. This is how we will leave this world:on horses of sunrise and sunset from the shadow of the mountains who witnessed every battle every small struggle."
Joy Harjo,
from How We Become Human
