Prelude of Simon Ortiz's book Woven Stone
Prelude to the first section of the book, entitled "Going For
The Rain," in Simon Ortiz's book Woven Stone.
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There is a song which goes like this: Let's go again, brother;
let us go for the shiwana. Let us make our prayer songs. We will go
now. Now we are going. We will bring back the shiwana. They are
coming now. Now, they are coming. It is flowing. The plants are
growing. Let us go again, brother; let us go for the shiwana.
A man makes his prayers; he sings his songs. He considers all
that isimportant and special to him, his home, children, his
language, the selfthat he is. He must make spiritual and physical
preparation before any-thing else. Only then does anything
begin.
A man leaves; he encounters all manners of things. He has
adventures,meets people, acquires knowledge, goes different places;
he is alwayslooking. Sometimes the traveling is hazardous;
sometimes he findsmeaning and sometimes he is destitute. But he
continues; he must.His traveling is a prayer as well, and he must
keep on.
A man returns, and even the returning has moments of despair and
tragedy. But there is beauty and there is joy. At times he is
confused,and at times he sees with utter clarity. It is all part of
the traveling thatis a prayer. There are things he must go through
before he can bringback what he seeks, before he can return to
himself.
The rain comes and falls. The shiwana have heeded the man, and
theyhave come. The man has brought back the rain. It falls, and it
is nour-ishing. The man returns to the strength that his selfhood
is, his home,people, his language, the knowledge of who he is. The
cycle has beentraveled; life has beauty and meaning, and it will
continue because lifehas no end.
On May 27, 1941, Simon J. Ortiz was born in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. He attended Fort Lewis College and the University of New
Mexico for undergraduate studies. He received his MFA as an
International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa's Writer's
School in 1969. His books of poetry include: Telling and Showing
Her: The Earth, The Land (Just Buffalo Literary Center, 1995);
After and Before the Lightning (1994); Woven Stone (1992); From
Sand Creek: Rising In This Heart Which Is Our America (1981), for
which he received a Pushcart Prize; A Good Journey (1977); Going
for the Rain (1976); and Naked in the Wind (1971). Ortiz is a
recipient of the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writer's Award, the
New Mexico Humanities Council Humanitarian Award, the National
Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award, a National Endowment for
the Arts Fellowship, and was an Honored Poet at the 1981 White
House Salute to Poetry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award
from the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers. Ortiz lives
in the Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, where he was lieutenant governor
and a consulting editor of the Pueblo of Acoma Press. He has taught
writing and Native American literature at various institutions, and
currently teaches at the University of Toronto.PAGE 1Ortiz, Simon.
Woven Stone. The University of Arizon Press. Tucson &
London.1992.
