This poem aptly captures the complicated emotions of being human, and the way natural forces like an ocean’s waves can both mirror and erase emotions such as anger and sadness. The moment when “dootł’izh” appears complicates the poem in interesting ways; because the Navajo word can mean both green or blue, it is perhaps a metaphor for the mixture of elusive emotions that can coexist within humans. The chantlike ending relinquishes the thinking mind, allowing the language of the ocean to overtake everything. Selected by Victoria Chang
Dootł’izh
By Esther G. Belin
Christmas day
we sat at the ocean along the Southern California coast
the loud voices in the waves
made our own anger seem ridiculous, a tantrum
our tears like breakers of unsaid sayings
an orbital crash pounding
surface into sandstone
a mortar and pestle, rhythmic as each change in tide
How fascinating the light glows
crystal in places
deep with envy in others
and still dark with mystery, like the language
within
releasing true colors
or maybe not
dootł’izh
Navajo language
where blue is green and green is blue
churning a color into living water, an ocean
or perhaps union …
Dootł’izh
like the churning waters
Dootł’izh
like the churning waters
Victoria Chang is a poet whose latest book of poems is ‘‘The Trees Witness Everything’’ (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). Her fifth book of poems, ‘‘Obit’’ (2020), was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in Antioch University’s M.F.A. program. Esther G. Belin is a multimedia artist and writer. She is the author of ‘‘From the Belly of My Beauty’’ (University of Arizona Press, 1999), a book of poems; and co-editor of ‘‘The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature’’ (University of Arizona Press, 2021), both of which won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. This poem appears in her most recent collection, ‘‘Of Cartography’’ (The University of Arizona Press, 2017). She lives in Colorado with her family.
