For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, a tribe who once lived in the Southeastern part of the United States from Tennessee to Florida. Under President Andrew Jackson they were forced out of their ancestral territory in a march that would later be known as the Trail of Tears. Along with other Native American tribes, the Creek settled in the territory now known as Oklahoma. Three generations later, Joy Harjo continues to draw on the Creek people’s historical memory and the culture and history they retained after the Europeans removed them from their original land. In “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” Harjo refers to both a personal and cultural past, as well as to the mythology of original Creek people.

The speaker addresses the reader: “Let your moccasin feet take you” (Line 8). Moccasins are a type of shoe that indigenous people wore before the Europeans arrived. The speaker is addressing other indigenous people, or at least using indigenous terminology to address the audience.

Similarly, the speaker says: “Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters” (Line 9). The term “postcolonial” refers to the European colonization of the Americas, when Europeans displaced indigenous peoples from the land. The speaker suggests this gives her audience jitters. Connecting with nature can heal them, though this won’t be easy. The speaker acknowledges that there are modern distractions, as well as ancestral pain passed down from generations. They comfort the reader: “Don’t worry. / The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves” (Lines 12-13).

The “massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves” (Line 13) take on different meaning when seen from the perspective of an indigenous person. They can refer to any war or any massacre, but for the speaker they are likely a reference to the massacres of Native Americans by European settlers and their descendants, and later wars that led to the weakening of Native American tribes and their forced relocation to “Indian Territory,” now Oklahoma.

The speaker advises the reader to “[l]et go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction” (Line 20). The “pain of your ancestors” refers to the inherited trauma of displacement. The speaker is acknowledging how much pain a person can carry from marginalization and trauma. They are stored in the body, as well as in the mind; it takes an act of conscious effort to let go.

In introducing this poem at a reading, Harjo noted that she believed holding onto past stories that caused her and others shame held her back. Once she told the stories, she felt relief and felt the shame disappear. When the speaker says: “Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse” (Line 23), they may be referring to any story that causes a person shame, whether it be political, historical, or personal. They describe the places that trap shame amorphously, perhaps because there are so many ways a person can experience abuse. Harjo wants this poem to be relevant to all; no matter the context, these feelings are universal.