Anonymous: "Song for Going to the Water" [Cherokee]

If your heart is not well,
If your spirit is not well,
These words may help you.

Wake in the hour
Just before dawn.
Wake in the hours
Before first light.
Wake when the animals of the night
Have ended their songs,
When the animals of the day
Have not yet begun their songs.

Walk without words.
Follow the path
That leads to the stream.

Then, as the first light
Touches the stream,
Bend to the water,
Speak these words:

"Long Person, I come to ask your help."

Then hold up
A cup of that water
And drink the dawn.



"Song for Going to the Water," purportedly from the Cherokee tradition. Text as published in ISTEP + English/Language Arts Test Preparation and Practice Workbook, Glencoe Language Arts Grade 7, Teacher's Annotated Edition (The McGraw-Hill Companies, undated).

Art credit: "River Stour [near Wimborne] at Dawn," photograph by Andrew Child.