60 for 60: DEER DANCE/FOR YOUR RETURN

By Madison Shimoda

Here in Morningside Heights, we have decidedly entered the season of autumn. The days are becoming shorter and cooler, and foliage is beginning to blush—estival abundance is slowly shifting toward winter’s decay. While some are celebrating the season of pumpkin spice, others—or perhaps, just me—spend this time ruing the loss of summer, as if it weren’t something that happened every year. That was, until I read a certain poem.

In 1977, in the first issue of the Columbia Journal, we published “DEER DANCE/FOR YOUR RETURN” by Leslie Marmon Silko, a Laguna Pueblo poet, essayist, and novelist known for her significant contributions to the Native American literary and artistic renaissance. Silko’s work primarily focuses on Native American life, often through the lens of her mixed-race ancestry, highlighting the importance of preserving native traditions. This poem is no different. “DEER DANCE/FOR YOUR RETURN” is a lyrical celebration of the cyclical nature of loss and life. As explained in the note at the end of the poem, the Laguna Pueblo hunters’ Deer Dance is a ceremonial ritual that has two purposes: to bring back deer spirits to their hills and to give thanks to the deer who have given up their lives to feed people through the winter. Instead of falling into my usual autumnal melancholy, this poem has reminded me to embrace the season cycle and the opportunity to recharge during this transitional period and, most importantly, to be grateful for life’s many blessings.

DEER DANCE/FOR YOUR RETURN
(February, 1977)

Leslie Marmon Silko

If this
will hasten your return
then I will hold myself above you all night
blowing softly
down-feathered clouds
that drift above the spruce
and hide your eyes
as you are born back
to the mountain.

 Years ago
through the yellow oak leaves
antlers polished like stones
in the canyon stream-crossing
              Morning turned in the sky
              when I saw you
              and I wanted the gift
              you carry on moon-color shoulders
              so big
              the size of you
              holds the long winter.

You have come home with me before
a long way down the mountain
The people welcome you.
I took
the best red blanket for you
the turquise the silver rings
were very old
              something familiar for you.
              blue corn meal saved special.
 
While others are sleeping
I tie feathers on antlers
whisper close to you
                     we have missed you
                     I have longed for you.
 
Losses are certain
in the pattern of this dance
Over the terrain a hunter travels
blind curves in the trail
seize the breathe
until it leaps away
loose again
to run the hills.
                Go quickly.
 
How beautiful
this last time
I touch you
            to believe
            and hasten the return
            of lava-slope hills and
            your next-year heart
Mine still beats
in the tall grass
where you stopped.
                 Go quickly.
 
Year by year
after the first snow-fall
I will walk these hills and
       pray you will come again
I will go with a heart full for you
       to wait your return.
 
The neck pulse slacks,
then smooths.
It has been a long time
Sundown forms change
Faces are unfamiliar
      As the last warmth goes
      from under my hand
      Hooves scatter rocks
      down the hillside
      and I turn to you
The run
for the length of the mountain
is only beginning.

In the fall, the Laguna hunters go to the hills and mountains around Laguna Pueblo to bring back the deer. The people think of the deer as coming to give themselves to the hunters so that the people will have meat through the winter. Late in the winter the Deer Dance is performed to honor and pay thanks to the deer spirits who’ve come home with the hunters that year. Only when this has been properly done will the spirits be able to return to the mountain and be reborn into more deer who will, remembering the reverence and appreciation of the people, once more come home with the hunters.