WEBVTT

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The collection is
called The Gourd Dancer.

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And I took the name from the
Kiowa Gourd Dance, the Taipeh.

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I'm a member of the Gourd Dance
Society in the Kiowa tribe.

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And every year in July,
the Taipeh Society

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convenes at Carnegie, Oklahoma.

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And we have our dance.

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Since I have become a member,
I've not missed a celebration,

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4th of July celebration.

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It means has come to
mean something to me.

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My grandfather,
Mammedaty,

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was also a member of the Taipeh.

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And some time ago my father
and I convened a kind of family

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reunion in honor of
Mammedaty.

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And I wrote this poem and
read it on that occasion.

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It is called The Gourd Dancer,
Mammedaty, 1880,

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1932.

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One, the omen.

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Another season centers on
this place like memory,

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the blood congeals in it
and like memory too, the sun

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recedes into the hazy
southern distances.

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A vagrant heat hangs on
the dark river and shadows

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turn like smoke.

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An owl ascends
among the branches,

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clattering, remote within its
motion, intricate with age.