[Stylist] a poem for Native American Heritage month

[Ann Chiappetta]

Navajo Mountain

Norla Chee

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you close your eyes

and take a deep breath

you can hear the green sage sing

 

The gray stones beneath you

feel young again

The breeze watches

it all with her Mona Lisa smile

 

Naatsis’áán takes it all in

 

The thunder of a hundred hooves,

whoops and hollers of the crowd,

the intensity of the riders

as in the day of wild warriors 

on the warpath.

 

There are chicken pulls, children’s foot races,

Navajo cake, kneel-down bread, drum songs

 

K’é shakes the roots of the mountain,

which gives the people her blessing

 

as does Sun God

with gentle warm breath.

 

The story I heard

was that the people

returned from Hwéeldi

and found strangers in their home.

 

Ashiih Litso just a boy, risked everything

on one horse race

and was blessed by the Holy People.

 

Another story goes that the mountain protected the people,

keeping soldiers away

and they never had to make the Long Walk.

 

Whichever story you live by,

the mountain remembers.

Eehaniih celebrates her,

head of the earth.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Norla Chee. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on
November 14, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

 

Norla Chee

Norla Chee is a Navajo and Oneida poet. The author of Cedar Smoke on Abalone
Mountain (UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 2001), she lives in White
Rock, New Mexico.

 

Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.

Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media 

914.393.6605 USA

Anniecms64 at gmail.com <mailto:Anniecms64 at gmail.com> 

All things Annie: www.annchiappetta.com <http://www.annchiappetta.com>  

 

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