We must call a meeting.

• Author: Harjo, Joy
• Position: Latitudes - Poem

I am fragile, a piece of pottery smoked from fire made of dung, the design drawn from nightmares. I am an arrow, painted with lightning to seek the way to the name of the enemy, but the arrow has now created its own language. It is a language of lizards and storms, and we have begun to hold conversations long into the night. I forget to eat. I don't work. My children are hungry and the animals who live In the backyard are starving. I begin to draw maps of stars. The spirits of old and new ancestors perch on my shoulders. I make prayers of clear stone of feathers from birds who live closest to the gods. The voice of the stone is born of a meeting of yellow birds who circle the ashes of a smoldering volcano. The feathers sweep the prayers up and away. I, too, try to fly but get caught in the cross fire of signals and my spirit drops back down to earth. I am lost...