A blue horse turns into a streak of lightning,
then the sun –
relating the difference between sadness
and the need to praise
that which makes us joyful, I can’t calculate
how the earth tips hungrily
toward the sun – then soaks up rain – or the density
of this unbearable need
to be next to you. It’s a palpable thing – this earth
philosophy
and familiar in the dark
like your skin under my hand. We are a small earth. It’s no
simple thing. Eventually
we will be dust together; can be used to make a house, to stop
a flood or grow food
for those who will never remember who we were, or know
that we loved fiercely.
Laughter and sadness eventually become the same song turning us
toward the nearest star –
a star constructed of eternity and elements of dust barely visible
in the twilight as you travel
east. I run with the blue horses of electricity who surround
the heart
and imagine a promise made when no promise was possible.

Joy Harjo