Anthropocene: A Dictionary

definitions provided by the Navajo–English Dictionary by Leon Wall & William Morgan

dibé bighan: sheep corral 

juniper beams caught charcoal in the late summer morning
night still pooled in hoof prints; deer panicked run from water 

ooljéé’ biná’adinídíín: moonlight

perched above the town drowned in orange and streetlamp
the road back home dips with the earth
                                                                    shines black in the sirens 

bit’a’ :  its sails or—its wing (s)

           driving through the mountain pass
                       dólii, mountain bluebird, swings out—
           from swollen branches
I never see those anymore, someone says 

diyóół        : wind (

                         wind (more of it) more wind as in (to come up)
                         plastic bags driftwood the fence line 

nihootsoii 

            :             evening—somewhere northward fire 
                                       twists around the shrublands; 
                               sky dipped in smoke—twilight 

        —there is a word for this, 
                                                    someone says 

                                        :           deidííłid, they burned it  
    
                                        :           kódeiilyaa, we did this

Credit

Copyright © 2021 by Jake Skeets. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 13, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“This poem is a look into anthropology. I consider the Navajo-English Dictionary, referenced in this poem, an anthropological text more than a linguistic one. Of course, it was created in the hopes of teaching Diné speakers English and non-Diné speakers Diné as a kind of window. Today, Diné people use books like this to relearn a language stolen from them, myself included. So, I thought I’d offer this window again, as an anthropological act, to show us what is happening.”
—Jake Skeets