‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ is a moving prose poem by Joy Harjo that personifies the earth as a spirit embroiled in the act of creativity. Presented as a reclusive storyteller, this symbol of nature incarnate is as mysterious as she is polite, welcoming you into her home with offered refreshments. All she requires is that you listen to her story.
Like so many of Harjo’s poems, she stuns with both her use of imagery and figurative language. Using both to weave a quietly devastating and rousing extended metaphor throughout its sentences. One that both embodies and captures life’s captivating wonder.
Summary
‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ by Joy Harjo imagines nature as a solitary storyteller with the ability to enrapture the human mind.
‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ begins with the speaker offering us a curt forewarning to not intrude upon the poem’s enigmatic subject. The reason? This “earth spirit” is busy creating a story. The speaker describes it as the “oldest story in the world,” one both delicate and always evolving into something new.
The price of being caught by the spirit outside its home is an invitation inside for coffee and warm bread. But you will also be “obligated to stay and listen” to the story she has been working on. One, the speaker again singles out as being “no ordinary story.”
In the course of listening to this tale, the speaker reveals you will experience harrowing moments of titanic terror and personal tragedy. From “earthquakes” and “lightning” to the “deaths of all those you love.” But there will also be such overwhelming beauty as you’ve never before experienced.
Such a story is so captivating that the speaker admits you might not even want to leave. “This is how she traps you,” they announce in reference to the earth spirit. They then direct your attention to a “stone finger” — possibly a headstone for a grave — explaining that the person buried there is the only person who’s “ever escaped” the telling of this story.
Structure and Form
‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ is a prose poem, meaning it is written not as a group of lines collected into a stanza but as a paragraph comprised of sentences. The poem still is quite poetic in its use of both imagery and figurative language. Harjo also plays with its cadence by alternating between short single-clause sentences and longer ones with cataloged images.
Literary Devices
‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ uses some of the following literary devices:
- Alliteration: the repetition of the first consonant sound in two closely placed words, as in “blinding beauty.”
- Kinesthetic Imagery: an illustration of movement or activity, as in the line, “She is working on a story” or the violent shaking invoked by “earthquakes.”
- Visual Imagery: a description of the scenery in the line, “If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread.” Other examples are “lightning” and the ambiguous “stone finger.”
- Extended Metaphor: Harjo compares life and all of existence to a narrative woven by nature: “It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing,” accentuates its timelessness and shifting plurality. “You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty” lists its capacity for both great grief and joy. And the only way to escape both life and the story is to die: “See that stone finger over there? / That is the only one who ever escaped.”
- Personification: Harjo lends the “earth spirit” human traits and characteristics, from her composition of a story to playing host to her houseguest.
Detailed Analysis
Sentences 1-3
Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. (…)
‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ begins with the speaker introducing the residence of an “earth spirit” via a cautionary command. The warning instills a mood of foreboding curiosity while also igniting that particularly human (and oftentimes self-destructive) pursuit of the elusively sublime.
But the reason we are not to disturb her is less severe: she’s simply hard at work on a story. One that the speaker describes as the “oldest story in the world…it is delicate, changing.” The extended metaphor that Harjo entwines throughout her prose poem starts to reveal itself in their symbolic diction.
The core idea of this metaphor is that the story represents a narrative record of the earth’s existence. The story’s significant age suggests its universal nature, “delicacy” emphasizes its importance and fragility, and its constant “change” reflects life’s inherent fluidity.
Sentences 4-7
If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. (…)
In this section of ‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit, ‘ the speaker explains exactly what will happen if you dare to disturb the busy Earth spirit spinning this universal yarn. However, there is no divine consequence or insidious lesson. The earth spirit of Harjo’s poem reacts with gentle hospitality to the gawkers at her door: inviting you in for “coffee…[and] warm bread.”
But there is a slight catch. “You will be obligated to stay and listen,” the speaker ominously declares. However, it’s ambiguous as to what exactly compels you to listen to her story if it’s indeed against your will. Yet the speaker reveals just a few sentences later that it is because the story is so “compelling” that you will want to keep listening — “this is how she traps you.”
In listening, you will be exposed to destruction and terror. Harjo symbolizes both through the imagery of a natural disaster like an earthquake and the fury of a lightning strike. You’ll also need to be prepared for immense grief like the “deaths of all those you love.” The speaker curbs such despair with the promise of experiencing “blinding beauty” — a crucial reminder of life’s opportunities for bliss.
Sentences 8-9
See that stone finger over there? (…)
‘Don’t Bother the Earth Spirit’ ends with the speaker shifting the scene away from the interior of the Earth spirit’s home toward another part of the scenery. Harjo uses a rhetorical question to point out the existence of a “stone finger” within sight of both the speaker and listener. Ambiguity veils this vividly tangible but inexplicable image more than any other found in the poem. It’s even unclear whether this object is inside or outside the home.
One interpretation might view the “stone finger” as a symbol for the headstone of a grave, as the images conjured up by both somewhat resemble each other. This also meshes with the poem’s extended metaphor, revealing the only way to escape life’s story is through death.
FAQs
The poem’s theme emphasizes nature’s active role throughout Earth’s history and its timelessness about our brief and temporary existence. It reveals how our lives are impossibly entangled in the story of our planet.
Harjo’s poems often explore how our experiences as humans are, at their core, quite universal. In this poem, she hones in on the “oldest story” ever told to underscore the sentiment that what unites us is our shared experiences with tragedy and beauty.
The reason the story is so captivating is because of the grandiose emotion it inflicts on those who hear and experience it. Like the catharsis offered by a splendid piece of art told by a talented bard, they will allure you with depressing lows and ecstatic highs.
Ethereal and immortal, the earth spirit of Harjo’s poem reacts somewhat unexpectedly to a loitering mortal. Instead of responding with anger (as the speaker’s warning might’ve implied), they offer nourishment in the form of food and a story. Illustrating and stressing the need for a communicative bond between humanity and nature.
Similar Poems
Here are some more poems by Joy Harjo that you may enjoy:
- ‘She Had Some Horses’ – this poem also uses figurative language to understand life’s and people’s varieties.
- ‘An American Sunrise’ – this poem explores some of the experiences of Indigenous Americans.
- ‘Perhaps the World Ends Here’ – this poem envisions the end of the world at a kitchen table.
