What else to call the way the bare branches I’d bought at the neighborhood bodega came back to life that winter. I’d carried them home—dry, wrapped in paper—stuck them in the square vase, and, as an afterthought, filled it with water.
I don’t know when I noticed the pale pink shoots sprouting from the submerged ends: wild, reaching roots, like ginseng, or the hair on an old woman’s chin. Then tiny green leaves began to appear at the tips, curling over themselves with the sheer effort of growing.
I thought they were dead.
And now I recall being in the grip of a darkness I did not have a name for and didn’t think I’d survive. I could try to describe it for you now: the nights I woke with my pulse pounding through, the heaviness of each breath, how the effort of being inside my body felt like burning—
What I really want to tell you is this: how, in the parch of that long drought, the people I loved kept bringing me water.
Water.
Though I turned my back, and did not answer to my name, though I flung the cup away—
Let me say it plain: I wanted to die. But something in me, some tiny bulb still alive under all that rotted wood, kept drinking, kept right on drinking.
In my experience, one of the hardest parts of experiencing depression or anxiety is the deep shame that comes with it, and the feeling that you are completely alone. During my darkest time, I often felt so ashamed. It was terrifying, because I thought it would be better to die than to keep living with the way it felt to be inside my own body and brain. It was only when I allowed myself to be vulnerable and share with my closest family and friends what was happening that there was the slightest relief and possibility of hope. I allowed these dear ones to hold the vision of myself that I could not hold. They could see the beauty in me and hold the vision of my healing in a way that I could not. They were a lifeline. This poem “Miracle” is for them.
"Joy Harjo, the first Native American poet to serve as U.S. poet laureate, has been reappointed to a rare third term by the Library of Congress. 'The story of America begins with Native presence, thoughts and words,' she said in a statement announcing her third term. 'Poetry is made of word threads that weave and connect us.'"
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
"What is it we’re actually influenced by when we read or translate from other languages? One answer lies in what the late critic Daniel Albright called panaesthetics, a sort of belief that certain universal principles might unite artists or the process of making, regardless of medium or language. But another answer might be that we go to the work of other languages or other art forms in order to escape an influence or given tendency that our own language and tradition may exert on our making."
