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<h1 id="reader-title">Joy Harjo: Tribute to John Trudell</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Joy Harjo</div>
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<p>One of our beloved messengers left this world December
8, 2015</p>
<p>In the early hours of the morning,</p>
<p>When the dreamers and teachers walk the earth</p>
<p>Speaking to us as we imagine the new day into being,</p>
<p>All of us here essential to the story in the great
imagining.</p>
<p>They took John with them. It was time.</p>
<p><span>And he was ready, he’d said his goodbyes, only
for now</span></p>
<p>Because we live in eternity together.</p>
<p>And was circled by those he loved: his children,</p>
<p>People whose lives he shared from his many travels</p>
<p>In this world to speak and sing the dreams and visions</p>
<p>He’d been given to take care of, to share.</p>
<p>And contingents of young warriors, from all over the
country</p>
<p>Including Hickory Ground or Oce Vpofv people, from one
of the last</p>
<p>Calls John answered for justice from the East, and
other groups</p>
<p>From the North, West, and South arrived to pay respect</p>
<p>Because he was one of them, grown older and wise</p>
<p>After paying the terrible costs of being human</p>
<p>In a society broken by lies, greed, and our failures.</p>
<p>Everything has a cost.</p>
<p>Carrying a vision out of such massive tests demands the
highest price of a prophet.</p>
<p>And we are human beings only after all.</p>
<p>And some visions are relentless.</p>
<p>To know the images and words you have to live them.</p>
<p>And they will not let you rest.</p>
<p>In every season are given messengers.</p>
<p>They rise up to carry a voice for a nation, a people, a
time.</p>
<p>They emerge through holes from broken history, from
bloody grounds,</p>
<p>stirred from the collective dream field by a need to
rectify</p>
<p>the difference between earthly injustice and holy
vision.</p>
<p>John Trudell was born of the need for someone among us</p>
<p>to stand and speak, from the Santee Sioux</p>
<p>Out of the heartbreak of this country, on February 15,
1946.</p>
<p>He grew up like other young native men, wandering these
lands</p>
<p>Fed by water, trees, stones, and education that didn’t
include them.</p>
<p>And in the middle of the age, when natives began
gathering</p>
<p>Together from their tribal fires</p>
<p>Around the common need to affirm our mutual presence</p>
<p>As caretakers of our lands, our families, our existence
as distinct nations</p>
<p>in an age of the rise of multinational corporate
overlords,</p>
<p>and the continued loss and theft of our children to the
greed carnival,</p>
<p>John stood up with his generation of change makers,</p>
<p>Questioners of evil, and warriors for justice.</p>
<p>He was there at Alcatraz, on the Trail of Broken
Treaties, he traveled widely</p>
<p>as a wise witness in Indian country, in the aftermath
of the aftermath</p>
<p>as the people stood for water rights, human rights, the
right</p>
<p>to be human in a time when people were forgetting</p>
<p>What it means to be human.</p>
<p>“We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights,” he
reminded us.</p>
<p>“We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights.</p>
<p>We must step into the reality of natural rights</p>
<p>because all of the natural world has a right to
existence</p>
<p>and we are only a small part of it.</p>
<p>There can be no trade off.”</p>
<p>We need these words more than ever now.</p>
<p><span>He was John Lennon, the son of Crazy Horse, Dylan
of the urban rez, the rez rez, the world rez.</span></p>
<p>“I am just a human being trying to make it in a world
that is very rapidly losing its understanding of being
human.”</p>
<p><span>John knew that art and culture were the ways to
raise us up.</span></p>
<p>Our creations hold memory so we can know who we were,
who</p>
<p>We are, and how we are becoming—he said that the
artists and warriors of the heart</p>
<p>are the poets, musicians, rappers, dancers, actors,
painters... those who create.</p>
<p>He was the original thinker who said:</p>
<p>“Think more. Believe less.” (Believe has the word “lie”
in it.)</p>
<p>“We don’t need more leaders. What we need are
thinkers.”</p>
<p>“We need to make peace with the earth.”</p>
<p>John roused an army of young native spoken word
artists, and made it okay for a warrior</p>
<p>To write poetry. Poetry is the love a man and woman
make when they create</p>
<p>A planet together. Poetry is a cleansing rain bringing
water to a thirsty land.</p>
<p>John said of his poems, “They’re called poems, but in
reality they’re lines</p>
<p>Given to me to hang on to.” And hang onto them we did,</p>
<p>from <em>Tribal Voice</em> to <em>Heart Jump Bouquet</em>,
to <em>AKA Graffiti Man</em> to <em>Blue Indian</em>,
<em>Bone Days</em>, <em>DNA: Descendants Now Ancestors</em>,
<em>Madness and the Moremes</em>, <em>Crazier than
HeIl,</em> and <em>Wazi’s Dream</em>, and many
others.</p>
<p>And hang on to his words we will, for they remind us
that:</p>
<p>“No matter what they ever do to us, we must always act
for the love of our people and the earth. We must not
react out of hatred for those who have no sense.”</p>
<p>These are good words for making a trail through this
beloved earth</p>
<p>Into the next world, a road we are all traveling
together.</p>
<p>A very human prophet carried these words, to share, for
us to continue to share.</p>
<p>Thank you/Mvto for honoring us with your gifts, your
smile, your laughter.</p>
<p>John Trudell and his family ask that people pray and
celebrate in their own way.</p>
<p>“… I appreciate all of your expressions of love. It has
been like a fire to my heart. Thank you all for that
fire. But please don’t worry about me, I know what I’m
doing…”</p>
<p>We won’t worry. We will look forward to hearing that
next concert with you and Jesse Ed Davis in the sky.
Don’t look back. Keep going. We will see you on the
other side.</p>
<p><em>Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee/Creek Nation,
Hickory Ground Ceremonial Ground, and lives in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. Her newest collection is a book of poetry,
“Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” from W.W.
Norton. You can find her at <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.joyharjo.com/">JoyHarjo.com</a>.</em></p>
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