The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee

It’s a strange Thanksgiving, but here we are. While acknowledging the many losses of this year, perhaps we can be grateful for all we’ve held on to, and for the resilience, support systems, and brief moments of delight that have brought us this far. Poet M. Scott Momaday, a leading Native American voice and Pulitzer Prize winner, evokes these moments for us in his poem “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee.”

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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 in 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 on 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