And now I'm going to read the "Sonora Series."
Those of you who are in the class I read for last night
will be surprised because I've changed the program entirely
since then.
I had not intended to read all of this.
The program I had outlined I think
was a show off program, which was full of pyrotechnics
and you wouldn't have enjoyed it at all.
So after midnight last night, I changed it entirely
and threw out all those things and put in some poems
I think you might enjoy more.
So I decided at that point to include all of the "Sonora
Series," It's all I will read from the "Journal of Return."
It was written over a long period of time.
It is, of course, local--
Sonora, in the sense of the Sonoran desert,
not necessarily the state in Mexico.
It was my attempt to come to grips
with the desert, a series of 17 poems.
Their architecture is very peculiar,
I think somewhat like these houses
that people start building room at a time and the architecture
changes from the time they start to the time they finish.
It starts out being neo nothing and winds
up being classical Navajo, if you can imagine such a house.
[LAUGHTER]
But I was originally frightened by the desert
when I came here, terrified to be more exact.
And when I moved into it and became more acquainted with it
and became more and more fascinated with it,
I cast about for ways to come to grips with it
and I discovered Navajo ritual poetry,
which I instinctively and immediately felt
to be very beautiful and steeped myself in.
So you will see the progression in these poems
from a innocuous beginning to more and more Navajo
creeping in--
Navajo ritual, Navajo symbology.
I read a good many books on Navajo,
including LaVerne Clark's book, They
Sang for Horses from which I learned a great deal more
than just about horses.
And there were others which influenced
me very much with these.
It sounds like I'm going to read an awful lot.
There are 17 of them, but most of them are very short
and they are numbered, but I won't read the numbers.
Sonora, what do these mountains want?
Why do they rearrange themselves and move silently closer
at night?
They never sleep.
Sometimes I shout at them that I am not afraid,
but they absorb my voice.
Dawn comes to them from another country speaking
of foreign tongue to which they pay no attention.
I am feted by the moon like pale nocturnal stones,
I come alive in the soft light of darkness.
The road extends a thin white hand to lead me back.
I cross it quickly and move on to the desert.
Tonight, I hear the frightened oriental voices of coyotes
as if they have just learned they were not
supposed to be born.
They wail against silence and these constant stars
are more than anyone can bear for very long.
Just after sunset, bats lurched through the sky
as if on broken wings.
Their faces are tiny and pitiful,
their faces are masks of pain.
It is a ceremony which causes the moon to rise.
A tarantula lumbers down the pale road,
which he believes was built for his convenience.
He loves to travel and is untroubled by ideas
of time or destination.
Skeletons of saguaros stand in amazement, long after death
while the moon changes them into designs of light and shadow
and their gray ribs hold the wind in a dark circle
where it circles and cries, cries and circles.
Night in the desert is a great glass bell.
I have shouted against its walls and there was no echo,
but the gods of Sonora heard me.
They sleep until the Earth cools,
then they walk down from the mountains
and shaggy-headed cholla go to meet them.
I have never seen the place where they meet,
but it is near.
After years of being watched and listened to,
I have learned to pray dark prayers.
Now I can anticipate the scream of a rabbit and night birds fly
through me as if I were a shadow thrown
by the moon over these faded stones.
The crow sits on the stump of a blasted mesquite
where lightning has been.
He worships the God of fire whose color is black.
He is aware of his sleek beauty and slender yellow legs.
In this desert, each stone has its own name
and no two have the same name.
When I stand between my shadow and the moon,
I hear their unborn children pushing up through dry sand.
I hear the firm clenching of claws
on branches for bird sleep.
And I'm aware of rabbits listening
for the shadow of an owl whose eyes are always
perfect circles.
No one knows what causes lights which
wander on the mountain nor why certain shadows have no agents.
It is more worthwhile to contemplate the cholla's
luminous blonde hair or steady night's great jeweled belly
for signs of dawn.
I came to this desert from the North, where the God of water
lives in a silent blue house.
Now I am walking in the morning and rain hangs from the sky.
I do not know this trail nor where I am going.
But in the East, I see brightness lying down.
The voice of these mountains is above the voice of thunder
and below the voice of the grasshopper.
They sing about a blue stone whose home
is in the South and a black stone whose
home is in the North.
They sing about the shell of many colors in the West
and the White shell in the East.
Seven years ago, I found these stones scattered in the desert
and built a wall.
Now they are climbing down, slowly sorting themselves
into families and going home--
neither time nor distance can discourage them.
And since I have seen their subtle movements,
I would not try to stop them.
Watching stones for seven years has taught me little
but it is enough.
And I am no longer afraid of the saguaros.
They are overgrown children swinging their arms,
grinning stupidly.
In the spring, each wears a large white flower on his head.
Their great green hearts are gentle and tiny owl's nest
in their eyes.
What were the lizards before they shrank?
Were they huge monsters or gods with fringed mouths?
Or were they both?
I have asked them many times and they are always
too sleepy to answer.
But in that second, before the film of sleep
comes over their eyes, I see the cold memory of an earlier world
below without sun or moon.
Their tiny arthritic hands stretch out on warm stone
they sleep.
I will not stand between them and the sun.
Tonight when I wade through rivers
of cold air and black arroyos, the coyotes
will be still and listen.
The white coyote is good and the yellow coyote is bad.
But each owl is the same owl and all are wholly.
Now dark cloud and his younger brother,
let the rain down as a curtain, may it be happy behind me.
The yellow snake will protect me and be my messenger.
She will take my prayer quickly to the gods
of the Western mountains, may it be happy in front of me.
In the early light, saguaros climb single file to meet me.
Each carries birds nests and flowers,
and each holds securely in his huge fists
the fragile lifelines of tiny spiders who ride the wind,
may it be happy on either side of me.
I walk with a God behind me.
I walk with a God in front of me.
I walk with a God on either side of me.
The mountain which moves is holy.
As it turns around, it draws all things to it.
It draws the clouds and the birds.
They circle around it, soon the rain hides it.
A handsome man comes out of the rain wearing
a necklace of white shells, the light from his necklace
flashes over the world.
His eyes are black as rain cloud.
His teeth are white his shells.
He is silent and draws the clouds to him.
In one hand, he carries a branch of dark spruce.
With the other, he sprinkles pollen
before him over the wet ground.
I go to the woman who changes.
Her sister leads me with a white shell in her hand.
In the evening, it will rain.
All night, it will rain.
In the morning, I will smell wild onions.
My song is short because I know so much.
[APPLAUSE]