This next poem I'm going to read is
for all the people from up around Chinle, Lukachukai,
Ganado, Greasewood, all that good country
up there where I spent so much time.
It's good country.
I was teaching at Navajo Community College
while I was living up there.
And I used to live down in Chinle,
and I used to commute every day.
I used to drive about, what, 16 miles one way.
Up every day and just driving along,
I used to see some things.
And these two poems here, well, that's where they came from.
This one's called, "Horses at Valley Store."
"Every day I meet the horses.
With dust and heat they come, step by step,
pulling the day behind them.
At Valley Store, there is water, gray steel tank,
narrow concrete trough.
Eyes that smell water, in a line, one by one,
moving with the weight of the sun,
moving through the deep earth heat
they come, people with water barrels and pickups and wagons.
So they pause.
And from their distance, outside of time, they wait."