When the World as We Knew It Ended

Geopolitical context puts to bed the notion that the 9/11 hijackers’ key motivation was “hating our freedoms.” This was a line from the Bush administration, and inspired a wave of outrage once the initial shock of the attacks wore off. With the encouragement of television news, rallying behind every statement from those in power, grief transformed into a clamor for violent retaliation: “The racket in every corner of the world” (Line 30).

Harjo’s poem is rooted in the perspective of Native American individuals, who are unlikely to be taken in by crowing patriotism and American flags. Those who “hunger for war” (Line 31) were not so well-informed. In 2002, a survey found that 83 percent of young Americans couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map. Despite overriding ignorance about the region, citizens were prepared to go to war against people they knew next to nothing about and for reasons they didn’t understand.

Harjo’s poem swings back and forth between nature and spirituality to militaristic language—“island of commerce” (Line 1), “Potatoes, enough for an army” (Line 14), “The conference of birds” (Line 23), “destroyers in the harbor” (Line 24), “the magnetic field” (Line 28), “gathered intelligence” (Line 35).