Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Simon J. Ortiz’s "Time as Memory as Story" is a deeply reflective poem that interweaves personal recollection, family history, and the larger themes of displacement, survival, and the relentless passage of time. Ortiz, an Acoma Pueblo poet, often explores the ways in which Indigenous experience is shaped by movement, labor, and the forces of history. This poem is both a personal narrative and a broader meditation on how memory functions—not as something static, but as something alive, something we cross and recross throughout our lives.

The poem’s refrain—"Let’s say it’s half a century later. / Let’s say it’s never too late. / Let’s say Skull Valley. / Let’s say."—immediately sets the tone for a meditation on time and memory. The repetition of "Let’s say" suggests an act of storytelling, a way of shaping experience into something graspable. Skull Valley, a place imbued with both personal and historical weight, becomes a focal point, a site of return, both physically and mentally. The phrase "Let’s say it’s never too late" introduces the idea that memory is fluid, that stories can always be revisited, reshaped, and understood in new ways.

Ortiz then directly addresses time: "Time has no mercy. It’s there. It stays still or it moves. / And you’re there with it. Staying still or moving with it." These lines introduce the tension between memory’s ability to fix moments in place and time’s relentless movement. The assertion—"I think it moves. And we move with it. And keep moving."—reinforces the idea that time is not something external, but something we are embedded within, something that carries us forward whether we recognize it or not.

The narrative thread begins with the speaker’s childhood: "Eleven years old and soon to be in fifth grade. That’s time. / Boys’ time. Who knows what time it is but them. Eternally." The phrase "Boys’ time" suggests a freedom from the concerns of adults, an awareness of time that is uniquely youthful—both expansive and unknowable. Yet, this carefree existence is set against a backdrop of movement and uncertainty: "Mama just packed us up in New Mexico and moved us. / Suddenly. A surprise. To me anyway. To join Daddy." The abruptness of the relocation reflects the larger instability of Indigenous life, where work, survival, and displacement are constant forces.

Ortiz details his father’s life as a railroad laborer: "Railroad work, labor, heavy machinery. Rails and sun. / Trains always moving. I remember the war. The 1940s. / Soldiers. Tanks. Cannons with huge guns and wheels." The trains, symbols of industrial progress, become a marker of both movement and separation. The father’s work, necessary yet alienating, keeps him away, emphasizing a theme common in Indigenous and working-class histories—fathers absent due to labor, families adjusting to their departure.

The reflection on childhood continues with a mixture of tenderness and hardship: "A boy misses his father. A boy watches younger sisters. / And younger brothers. All growing. And he’s growing." The speaker is both participant and observer in his own life, aware of the ways time shapes his family. The introduction of his father’s struggles—"Dad drank though. Dark moods. Dark scary times. Danger."—introduces the complexity of love and pain, a father who is both "wonderful, skilled man, artist, singer" and unpredictable. Ortiz does not shy away from the contradictions of familial love, recognizing that time, like memory, is not linear or simple.

The poem then shifts to the land and the traditions that provided grounding: "We farmed. Corn, melons, chili, beets, carrots, cilantro. / Onions. Even potatoes in little mounds but they died." The detailed list of crops contrasts with the stark statement that the potatoes died, hinting at the fragility of life and labor. The presence of the speaker’s grandfather as "a healer and respected kiva elder" provides a moment of stability, a connection to a past where time was understood differently—"We didn’t really need time when days and nights were safe."

However, the family’s movement continues: "Mama decided we must go to Skull Valley where Dad was." The journey by train is marked by fear, longing, and the unknown: "It was the first time ever we were leaving the reservation. / Only one world till then it seemed. Acoma community. Ours." The departure from Acoma is not just physical but symbolic—a passage into a world where Indigenous identity is uncertain, where the family is "lost at the edge of a strange world with a gray green depot." The sense of displacement is profound, heightened by hunger, exhaustion, and the stark reality of economic hardship—"Hamburgers we split. Water and water. Self-conscious."

Ortiz layers history with personal experience, linking his father’s resentment of railroad work to a larger Indigenous struggle: "Dad didn’t like working for the hard railroad. / He’d complain and rant about the crude and mean whites. / The slave rules. The company. Trains powerful, unending." The trains, once symbols of industrial might, are now revealed as instruments of exploitation. The young speaker’s fear of them—"Time I thought was in the trains. Fast, loud, dangerous."—reinforces how colonial expansion, war, and forced labor all converge within Indigenous experience.

Yet within this journey, there is also the persistent dream of something beyond: "I yearned for blue song. Hollow and lonely long tone. / Coming round the bend, and something beyond the horizon." Music, storytelling, and imagination offer an escape, a way of making sense of displacement. The boy’s world is one of wonder and fear, fascination and loss.

The final sections return to the moment of arrival—"When we knocked on his railroad worker housing door. / Daddy was shocked. In his underwear. Shadows upon." The reunion is raw and unsentimental, but there is still joy: "We laugh and hug and cry. Daddy. Daddy. We’re here." The moment affirms the endurance of family, despite distance and hardship.

Ortiz concludes with a reflection on the nature of memory: "Memory we cross and cross again. Treks, trauma, and on. / We do know what time is. It is loss and gain. A lingering." Time is not simply a sequence of events but something that is revisited, re-experienced, and continuously shaped. The return to Skull Valley—"When I went back. Recently."—demonstrates that places and histories remain, even as people change. The mention of "mountain lions in the mountains nearby" suggests something eternal, something that exists beyond human time.

The closing lines—"Our history is more than here. We know more than realize. / We realize what we don’t know. Or want to know. Truths."—acknowledge that history is both lived and elusive. The final refrain—"Let’s say it is ever an ongoing story."—emphasizes that time, memory, and story are inseparable. The act of telling is what keeps history alive, and as long as the story is spoken, it continues.

Ortiz’s free verse structure, with its shifting rhythms and interwoven reflections, mimics the way memory works—fluid, recursive, shaped by emotion and understanding. The poem’s repetition, particularly of "Let’s say," reinforces the idea that storytelling is an act of reclamation. Memory is not static; it is something we participate in, something that shapes and reshapes us.

"Time as Memory as Story" is ultimately about survival—of family, history, and identity. Ortiz captures the complexities of growing up Indigenous in America, where movement is often forced, labor is exploitative, and cultural ties are constantly challenged. Yet through storytelling, he asserts a different kind of continuity, one that defies colonial timelines. In remembering, in saying, in telling, the past remains present, and time itself becomes something shared, not lost.

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