And the reference to Waw Giwalik is Baboquivari Peak
on the O'odham reservation, the most sacred mountain
for the O'odham people.
And with that, this one is also in reference to Waw Giwalik.
But it's in English and just has some place names
listed for reference, at least in the piece.
And O'odham people say that no matter
where you are in this large Southwest region,
if you can see Waw Giwalik, that you are home.
And there's many places from the Tucson area
that you can certainly see Waw Giwalik.
So we're always home.
This one's called "Blacktop," and it's just
a reference to driving around the reservation
and always seeing the mountain from one place or another.
"The blacktop carries me past Three Points.
The security of the homelands passes by me.
It carries me past San Pedro, where
weavers sit under the watto.
Their voices drift into the tangle of desert
where all languages go.
The blacktop carries me into the tohono, into the heat,
making me delirious.
San Lucy sounds like a country western song.
The blacktop carries me in all directions.
Sometimes, I'm traveling with the lone eagle.
Other times, I roam with worse scavengers.
The blood of the heat of the blacktop calls me.
It calls me as if it has always known my name.
Anonymity is my desire.
Walking instead in sandy washes and rocky hills
unseen, leaving the debris of my life under a mesquite tree,
I rush toward an imaginary new life.
The blacktop carries me in all directions.
It knows my name.
I never told it my name.
It calls me.
It wants to carry me in all directions.
It whispers, 'You will always see Waw Giwalik
in your rear-view mirror.'"
And then finally, I just want to close
with a couple of real short pieces.
These are pieces that technically aren't published,
but they appear on boulders.
[LAUGHTER]
Those of you that are living in this part of town,
my husband and I have always lived down Mountain Avenue,
north of campus.
And when they did the widening and construction
on Mountain Avenue, myself and another public artist,
Simon Donovan, had the project of doing the landscape
along Mountain Avenue.
And so the boulders along Mountain Avenue
have some of my work etched into stone.
[LAUGHTER]
So, um-- and they were all bilingual pieces.
So that was an intentional project.
And so they turned out nicely.
And some of them referenced the little animals
that we still see in that area of town.
And so I'm just going to read a couple
of these little short pieces for you, because they
are bilingual, and I wanted to make sure that we
heard the language tonight.
This first one's called "Okokoi."
And this one also has appeared in a little broadside
from Kore Press.
"Okokoi," "Mourning Dove."
Ḍ 'o si we:pegkam ḍ 'o si we:pegkam hegai mo an je:k
g s-ke:g bahidaj ñi'a, ñi'a s-wa 'usim cewagĭ 'o 'i:bhe
"Mourning Dove."
"She is the first one, she is the first one
who tastes the first fruit.
See here, see here.
She breathes clouds of wetness."
And this one's another bird one.
It's called "Kakaichu Mamad," "Quail Babies."
[SPEAKING O'ODHAM]
"Quail Babies."
"Yellow month, little wings flutter.
Summer month, dance a traditional dance.
Your mother is the lead."
And then finally, "Javelina."
And this is based on a true experience
down on Mountain Avenue as well.
We had left our jack-o-lanterns out too long on Halloween.
And early in the morning, our neighbor across the street
called us and said, you have to get rid of those pumpkins.
The javelinas are out there.
And we went out, but we didn't see the javelinas.
But we saw their prints and the eaten pumpkins.
And in O'odham, they call it tasi'ikol or mischiñ kooji
or javelina.
[SPEAKING O'ODHAM]
"Javelina."
"You roam the neighborhood shrubs.
We see you wandered the dry riverbed, searching
for your dreams, maybe.
We see your tracks when you found your way
to our house, rotting pumpkin your delicacy that day."
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]