Granddaughters

I was a thought, a dream, a fish, a wing 
And then a human being 
When I emerged from my mother's river 
On my father's boat of potent fever 
I carried a sack of dreams from a starlit dwelling 
To be opened when I begin bleeding 
There's a red dress, deerskin moccasins 
The taste of berries made of promises 
While the memories shift in their skins 
At every moon, to do their ripening

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2019 by Joy Harjo, “Granddaughters” from An American Sunrise (W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.)