--own trembling shadow.
The cold slowly seeps into Navajo soil,
the north wind howls with coyotes,
and the encroaching night creeps into memories of days
before Arizona.
Tears run down crews of aged skin
glistening in the dying light.
Dusk slides away with fading memories
that only sounds of the waving stick could hold on to.
My grandmother sobs, "He used to bring in the wood for me."
Holding a feather with your song,
you dance on a smoke of dream leaping through dust.
My grandfather will remember you on this night.
And your memory comes alive with the rhythm of the weaving stick
dancing patterns across the loom.
I watch snow drift down the smoke hole,
creating a trail of steam along the rusty road
of corrugated metal.
And here, snowflakes hum on the [? health ?]
cut barrel wood stove in tune with my grandmother's singing.
The next one is called "In the Cornfield."
To the east, to the south, to the west, to the north,
to the center of the Earth, to the center of the sky,
to the center where I am, I am the son
of [? White Shell ?] Woman.
Where the Earth is, where the water is, bursts of rain clouds
rise.
Suddenly, three persons come upon an old man
hoeing with a digging stick in the middle
of the white cornfield.
Quickly he asks, "Who are you?"
Promptly one of the three persons answers, "I am me,
who else?"
The old man, slowly but surely lifts his straw hat,
wipes the sweat off his forehead on the back of his left hand
and he looks at the young Bilagaana
man with his Bilagaana wife behind him, swollen with child.
The old man's answer comes bursting forth
through the bulging stomach.
And the woman feels with each kick
the stretching of her pain.
"You say you are you, but I say you are not here yet.
Although you stand before me, I only
see your father, your mother, your grandmother,
your grandfather."
The sun catches the Navajo grin in action.
"See that stomach," the old man teases, "that one is mine."
"I don't translate that."
And he continues, "You are still there, there in the stomach.
I won't see you for a long time."
He looks up at the sun, and then his eyes
scan his wide cornfield.
"I am there, dancing in the breeze."
And out of the dancing stalks rides a young Navajo man
riding a buckskin, Wrangler jeans polishing an already hard
worn saddle, a silver buckle flashing
in the sun with its oval turquoise imitating the sky.
He strides off the horse and says, "I brought lunch for you
my father."
And the old man bellows with joy and delves into his food.
Where the water is, where the Earth is,
the voice of the corn beetle is heard
singing at the edge of the sky.
Striking moves flash around her feet
at the edge of the universe, and huge clapping clouds
rise on the horizon and move towards an old Navajo
man sitting under the shade of a scanty crease with bush
beside his white cornfield.
"The Four Sacred Mountains."
Our Navajo laws are represented by the sacred mountains
which surround us--
Blanca Peak, Mount Taylor, San Francisco Peaks, Hesperus Peak,
Huerfano Mountain, Gobernador Knob.
They were placed here for us.
We think of them as our home.
Blanca Peak is adorned with white shell.
Mount Taylor is adorned with turquoise.
San Francisco Peaks are adorned with abalone.
Hesperus Peak is adorned with jet.
Huerfano mountain is dressed in precious fabrics,
while Gobernador Knob is clothed in sacred jewels.
This is how they sit for us.
We adorn ourselves just as they do
with grace [? that's ?] of turquoise and precious jewels
about our necks.
The Sacred Mountains have always been where they are now.
They have been like that from the beginning.
They were like that in the worlds before this.
They were brought up from the underworld,
and they were put back and their respective places.
When the mountains were replaced, Earth was made,
sky was made, dawn was made.
Earth is our mother, sky is our father.
Sun gives us light, Moon does the same.
All of these were made for us to live by.
The town people say to us, "Get up my grandchildren.
Rise, do your work.
Do all the things that you must do."
At noon, the sun tells us, "It's time to eat."
And in the evening, when the sun sets, darkness says to us,
"Rest, sleep my grandchildren."
Then darkness blankets us, and we rest until dawn.
This is how they have regulated our lives at the beginning.
These mountains and the land between them
are the only things that keep us strong.
From them, and because of them, we prosper.
It is because of them that we eat plants and good meat.
We carry soil from the Sacred Mountains
in a prayer bundle that we call [SPEAKING NAVAJO]..
Because of this bundle, we gain sheep, horses, and cattle,
we gain possessions and things of value, turquoise, necklaces,
and bracelets.
With this, we speak, with this, we pray.
This is where the prayers begin.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]