Showing posts with label Rebecca Hatcher Travis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebecca Hatcher Travis. Show all posts

Yanash Kulli *


Excerpted from Constant Fires by Rebecca Hatcher Travis

Yanash Kulli *

alone on the pathway
ancient spirits 
beckon deeper
into the wooded land

grandfather trees
guide the way
bowing in majestic arcs
peace and silence here

deeper still
to the sacred stone circle
to the healing waters
hidden inside the forest

a private stillness here
but for a trickle over the stones
an extraordinary place
do you feel its secret?

up from within the heart of the earth
sparkling cool waters
bubble since time unknown
the spring gently bestows its gift

stones capture the bounty
hold it as tiny creatures
skim across the surface
water flees over the rocks

across the land
among the ancient trees
and whispering wind
into the rivers to the great sea

Grandmother watches
she sings her blessed song
Yanash Kulli
bubbles on

* Buffalo Springs

© Rebecca Hatcher Travis. All rights reserved.

Rebecca Hatcher Travis is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation who carries deep roots in both Indian Territory Oklahoma and Texas. Her first poetry book, Picked Apart the Bones, won the First Book Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas and was published by the Chickasaw Press. 

Her second poetry book, Constant Fires, was released by White Dog Press, a division of Chickasaw Press, in October, 2017. Other published work appears in literary journals, anthologies, online and recently in Tending the FireNative Voices and PortraitsMs. Travis is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. She lives in the foothills of the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma, near the land her ancestors settled in early Indian Territory days. She continues to write and give poetry presentations.

chickasawpress.com/Authors/Rebecca-Hatcher-Travis

Fresh Wildness

By Rebecca Hatcher Travis

imbedded in every native heart
is love of land
this earth we stand on
live on
our homeland
among first memories

a part of us
like our own bodies
we know the connection
sweet *petrichor brings flashes
of childhood pleasures
we will always treasure

tender as flesh
her whipping winds
thunder rumbling
dust and rains
trembling darkness
heart-melting blueness above

our Mother
draws us outdoors
to fresh wildness
where we belong
in our special place on
this wondrous earth

*petrichor:  smell of rain

Copyright © 2016, Rebecca Hatcher Travis. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Hatcher Travis, an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, often writes of her indigenous heritage and the beauty of the natural world. Her poetry book manuscript, Picked Apart the Bones, won the First Book Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas and was published by the Chickasaw Press. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, literary journals and online. Ms. Travis is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and lives in south central Oklahoma, near the land her ancestors settled in Indian Territory days. She is currently working on another book of poetry and continues to give poetry presentations at Oklahoma venues.

On Native Ground


By Rebecca Hatcher Travis

like old men
faithfully bent over
their constant fires
hazy blue hills
work their way toward me
chock full of spirits
of ceremony

traveling through countryside
snuggled against vast prairies
still bearing the dust
of the buffalo

I cross over
cool wooded territory
that sinks into valleys
and climbs to meet the sun
on the other side

brimming with our history
the old ones retell
their stories so well
we stay late to hear them
over and over
until they live
within our hearts

once we settled here anew 
now roots grow deep
in this land too
when I stand
on native ground
my heart knows
I am home


First published in Sunday Evening Poem series, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. 

Copyright © Rebecca Hatcher Travis. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rebecca Hatcher Travis, an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, often writes of her indigenous heritage and the beauty of the natural world. Her poetry book manuscript, Picked Apart the Bones, won the First Book Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas and was published by the Chickasaw Press. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, literary journals and online. Ms. Travis is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and lives in south central Oklahoma, near the land her ancestors settled in Indian Territory days. She is currently working on a new book of poetry.


Picked Apart the Bones


Rebecca Hatcher Travis bases the poems in this exquisite collection on memories of her Chickasaw family and the Oklahoma landscapes that surrounded her as a child. Her poems also serve as testimonies to the ancestors who have passed on to the next life. 

Picked Apart the Bones won the 2006 First Book Award for Poetry from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rebecca Hatcher Travis, an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, often writes of her indigenous heritage and the beauty of the natural world. 

Her poetry book manuscript, Picked Apart the Bones, won the First Book Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas and was published by the Chickasaw Press. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, literary journals and online. Ms. Travis is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and lives in south central Oklahoma, near the land her ancestors settled in Indian Territory days. She is currently working on a new book of poetry

River, Blood, And Corn: A Community of Voices

Promoting community and strengthening cultures with storytelling, poetry and prose.

  • Copyright © 2010-2024. Individual writers and photographers retain all rights to their work, unless they have other agreements with previous publishers.
  • We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

  • If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.—Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel