And the last poem I'm going to read
is called "Through the Smoke Hole."
It is a medium long poem and three sections.
I think probably most of you down here
in this part of the country know that the pueblo kiva was
entered through the ceiling through the smoke hole
by a ladder.
And also many other types of Indian
houses in California in the Southwest, not necessarily
ceremonial constructions, but dwellings
were entered through the smoke hole at the top.
Now I can't say much more than that about this poem,
except that it was actually-- it came to be actually
as a kind of, shall I call, religious geological vision.
And I think the first part might help
make the second part clearer.
There is another world above this one or outside
of this one.
The way to it is through the smoke of this one and the hole
that smoke goes through.
The ladder is the way through the smoke hole.
The ladder holds up, some say, the world above.
It might have been a tree or pole.
I think it is merely a way.
Fire is at the foot of the ladder.
The fire is in the center.
The walls are round.
There is also another world below or inside this one.
The way there is down through smoke.
It is not necessary to think of a series.
Raven and Magpie do not need the ladder.
They fly through the smoke holes shrieking and stealing.
Coyote falls through.
We recognize him only as a clumsy relative,
a father in old clothes we don't wish to see with our friends.
It is possible to cultivate the fields of our own world
without much thought for the others.
When men emerge from below--
Now this is the important part.
--we see them as the masked dancers of our magic dreams.
When men disappear down, we see them
as plain men going somewhere else.
When men disappear up, we see them
as great heroes shining through the smoke.
When men come back from above, they fall through and tumble.
We don't really know them, Coyote as mentioned before.
Out of the kiva come masked dancers or plain men.
Plain men go into the ground.
Out there, outside, all the chores, wood and water, dirt,
wind, the view across the flat.
Here in the round no corners.
Head is full of magic figures.
Woman your secrets aren't my secrets.
What I can't say I won't.
Walk round.
Put my hand flat down.
You in the round too, gourd vine blossom.
Walls and houses drawn up from the same soft soil.
30 million years gone, drifting sand.
Cool rooms, pink stone, worn down fort floor,
slat sighting, heat shine on Junma River.
Dry wash, truck tracks in the riverbed, coiled sand pinyon.
seabottom, riverbank, sand dunes.
The floor of a sea once again.
Human fertilizer, underground water tunnels,
skinny dirt gods, grandmother berries.
Out Through the smoke hole, for childhood and youth are vanity.
A Permian reef of algae, out through the smoke hole
swallowed sand, salt mud, swum bodies,
flat to the limestone blanket.
Lizard tongue, lizard tongue.
Wha, wha, wha, flying in and out through the smoke hole.
Plain men come out of the ground.
[APPLAUSE]