Tonight is the lunar eclipse Tonight the moon blooms Tonight my grandma is home The cornfield carpets the canyon's basin A Navajo field of colored corn Red, Yellow, Blue, and White Grandma Nalnishe whispers to the moon Her turquoise jewels reflect the evening dinner fire In the distance, the bells of the sheep ring Overhead the moon begins to glow. Tonight is the lunar eclipse Tonight the moon blossoms Tonight my grandma is home. Every year, the Crow Fair brings her family back She holds her sleeping grandchild In the security of her camp, she sings Grandma Black Eagle sings for the moon And the booming drumbeats create the rhythm The Little Bighorn river reflects the starlit sky Through the trees the moon begins to glow.

Tonight is the lunar eclipse Tonight the moon burns Tonight my grandma is home. A Hopi village rests quietly on a mesa In a rectangular room, she whispers a prayer As the candlelight shadows of the Kachinas dance on the wall Grandma Honyumtewa prays for the moon And a lone Kachina points out the window On the roof top, an owl hoots "who?" Out the window the begins to glow. Tonight is the lunar eclipse Tonight the moon bleeds Tonight my grandma is home. Relocated to a house in Oklahoma She lost her Cherokee homeland In her rocking chair, a tear drips off her cheek Grandma Webb cries for the moon While fanning herself with a beaded Eagle-feather fan The air is sick as a loud car passes by And over the buildings the moon begins to glow. Tonight is the lunar eclipse Tonight the moon beacons Tonight all my grandmas are home Tonight they all see Grandmother Moon Tonight the moon glows deep like blood Tonight the moon is Indian.

Hershman John

First published in Expedition: The Magazine of the U. of Pa.
Museum of Archaelogy and Anthropology, Vol. 37, #1, 1995
© 1992 by Hershman John
All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted
without the express permission of the author.

Poetry and Other Writings