The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee by N. Scott Momaday

THE DELIGHT SONG OF TSOAI-TALEE 
by N. Scott Momaday

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs on the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter of the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things
You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

SOURCE: “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee” appears in N. Scott Momaday‘s collection The Gourd Dancer (Harper, 1976), available at Amazon.com.

IMAGE: “Floral Man,” self-portrait (1986) by Frank Big Bear, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  N. Scott Momaday, a Native American author of Kiowa descent, received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1963. Momaday’s doctoral thesis, The Complete Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, was published in 1965. In 1969, his novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 for his work celebrating and preserving Native American oral and art tradition. He holds 20 honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.