Friday from the Archives: “Harvest Time” a poem by Tonya Holy Elk with art by Joan C. Blackwell in NCLR 2023
November is Native American Heritage Month! Our entire 2023 Special Feature across 3 issues of NCLR was dedicated to Native American Literature of North Carolina. Of course, now we encourage more voices and writing on this feature to be considered for our Flashbacks sections in future issues!
Poet, author, and educator Tonya Holy Elk grew up in southeastern North Carolina. She’s an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation of Pine Ridge, SD, and has kinship ties to the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. Tonya’s focus is Native American literature, and her poetry is themed around land, kinship, and food while reminding readers about the importance of preserving Native American culture and identity through oral history traditions.
Harvest Time
Brown tobacco fields. Sticky leaves hang, sag,
touch the dusty, rich soil. Mother Earth gives
food and precious medicines to feed, heal.
Down the road, three sisters – corn, beans,
squash – wait in summer’s heat. Harvest time.
Golden silks blow like hair. Tall green stalks
embrace sweet golden ears. Underneath –
butter bean bushes snuggle. Plump green beans
dangle like earrings. Nestled low to the shaded
ground, bright yellow squash glow
as if painted by the sun.
Inside the sacred circle, is life. Seasons to plant,
grow and harvest. Bright new moon settles gently,
close to Mother Earth as if to whisper –
change
Southeast North Carolina. Dusty dirt roads,
fields of snow white cotton and purple-vine
pea fields. Cheraw, Siouan, Lumbee, and Coharie
gather past black-tea-colored waterways.
Ready for harvest time.
Add the 2023 issue to your collection today!
