Song “A” Navajo translated by Washington Matthews | poem-a-day

 I don’t quite know why I don’t post more from poem-a-day, a literally does what it says on the can daily inbox treat I have subscribed to for years but tend to keep quite seperate?!

So here is todays which struck perhaps for obvious reasons (a lifelong fascination with the 500 nations of America perhaps)

Song “A”

Washington Matthews

translated from the Navajo by Washington Matthews  Where my kindred dwell, there I wander. Child of the White Corn am I, there I wander. At the Red Rock House, there I wander. Where the dark kethawns are at the doorway, there I wander. With the pollen of dawn upon my trail, there I wander. At the yuni the striped cotton hangs with pollen. There I wander. Going around with it, there I wander. Taking another, I depart with it. With it I wander.  In the house of long life, there I wander. In the house of happiness, there I wander. Beauty before me, with it I wander. Beauty behind me, with it I wander. Beauty below me, with it I wander. Beauty above me, with it I wander. Beauty all around me, with it I wander. In old age traveling, with it I wander. On the beautiful trail I am, with it I wander.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 16, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

about this poem

“Song ‘A’” can be found in Navaho Myths, Prayers, and Songs with Texts and Translations (The University Press at Berkeley, 1907) by Washington Matthews, edited by P. E. Goddard. In “American Indian Poetry,” published in American Anthropologist, Vol. 27, No. 1 (January–March 1925), poet Eda Lou Walton and anthropologist T. T. Waterman described the narrative of the poem: “Dawn-Boy, son of the White Corn, wandering among his people, comes to the Red Rock cliff-house which the Navaho regard as the dwelling of the gods. There he sees the kethawn, hanging thick with pollen, in front of the door. He sees behind the fire the sacred striped cotton fabric covered with pollen. He remembers that he has brought gifts to the gods. At last he enters the house, the revered and beautiful house of old age, the house in which there is beauty all around him.”