The collection is called The Gourd Dancer.
And I took the name from the Kiowa Gourd Dance, the Taipeh.
I'm a member of the Gourd Dance Society in the Kiowa tribe.
And every year in July, the Taipeh Society
convenes at Carnegie, Oklahoma.
And we have our dance.
Since I have become a member, I've not missed a celebration,
4th of July celebration.
It means has come to mean something to me.
My grandfather, Mammedaty,
was also a member of the Taipeh.
And some time ago my father and I convened a kind of family
reunion in honor of Mammedaty.
And I wrote this poem and read it on that occasion.
It is called The Gourd Dancer, Mammedaty, 1880,
1932.
One, the omen.
Another season centers on this place like memory,
the blood congeals in it and like memory too, the sun
recedes into the hazy southern distances.
A vagrant heat hangs on the dark river and shadows
turn like smoke.
An owl ascends among the branches,
clattering, remote within its motion, intricate with age.