Table of Contents
Prologue xv
Map of the Trail of Tears xvii
Break My Heart 3
My grandfather Monahwee 5
Exile of Memory 6
Granddaughters 20
The Fight 21
Directions to You 22
Seven Generations 25
In 1990 a congress 26
Weapons, 27
The Story Wheel 28
Once I looked at the moon 29
Washing My Mother's Body 30
There is a map 34
Rising and Falling 35
The Road to Disappearance 36
Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues 37
My great-grandfather Monahwee 46
How to Write a Poem in a Time of War 47
Mvskoke Mourning Song 51
First Morning 52
Singing Everything 53
Falling from the Night Sky 54
Our knowledge is based 55
For Earth's Grandsons 56
Running 57
A Refuge in the Smallest of Places 59
I'm Nobody! Who Are You? 60
Bourbon and Blues 61
My Great-Aunt Ella Monahwee Jacobs's Testimony 63
Road 64
The Southeast was covered 65
Desire's Dog 66
Dawning 67
Honoring 68
My Man's Feet 70
"I Wonder What You Are Thinking" 72
For Those Who Would Govern 74
Rabbit Invents the Saxophone 75
When Adolfe Sax patented 77
Let There Be No Regrets 78
Advice for Countries, Advanced, Developing and Falling 79
Tobacco Origin Story 81
My aunt Lois Harjo told me 83
Redbird Love 84
We follow the DNA spiral of stories 86
Becoming Seventy 87
Beyond 95
Ren-Toh-Pvrv 96
Memory Sack 97
Every night 98
Cehotosakvtes 99
One March 100
By the Way 101
When we made it down last year 103
Welcoming Song 104
An American Sunrise 105
Bless This Land 106
Acknowledgments 111
