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let me give it

in the night dreams of yours
you want me to be there with you
I WILL BE
in the empty dark nights
you want me to pick up a light
I WILL DO
in burning hot sunny days
you want me cover you
I WILL COVER
or it would be chilling winter
you want to give you heat by closing my arms around you like a wrist watch
I WILL
i do because i love you
not because of beauty
if beauty is pain
let me get lost in it
if you are my salvation
i want to earn it
if love is all i have to give
LET ME GIVE IT.....
I release you, my beautiful and terrible
fear. I release you. You were my beloved
and hated twin, but now, I don't know you
as myself. I release you with all the
pain I would know at the death of
my children.

You are not my blood anymore.

I give you back to the soldiers
who burned down my home, beheaded my children,
***** and sodomized my brothers and sisters.
I give you back to those who stole the
food from our plates when we were starving.

I release you, fear, because you hold
these scenes in front of me and I was born
with eyes that can never close.

I release you
I release you
I release you
I release you

I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved.

to be loved, to be loved, fear.

Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.
You have gutted me but I gave you the knife.
You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't hold you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice
my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart my heart

But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid of dying.
Joy Harjo, leading contemporary Native American poetess
i care not for fame
i need only the love
of my family
Senryu
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