This next poem comes from the Southwest.
Once I was on sort of a Poetry in the Schools tour
in both Arizona and New Mexico.
And one of the places I went was the Navajo reservation.
And I visited a lot of BIA schools up there.
And they were your typical BIA schools.
They weren't all that good.
And the students lived on them like campuses.
And the rules were very strict.
The boys and girls were separated from each other.
But in spite of this, everybody seemed
to be really healthy-looking and really cheerful.
And it was really a good positive experience,
from that standpoint.
But I couldn't help but think about this school
and how much better things would be if, say, a good school came
in there.
I don't want to get in trouble with BIA,
but, quite often, I think it's common knowledge
that those schools aren't the best in the world.
So I was talking to this one girl.
Her name was Eulynda.
I won't tell her last name here because maybe somebody would
recognize her, and I wouldn't want her to--
to reveal any secrets.
So I was down there and thinking that this one girl,
if I could take her away from here,
because she had everything going for her.
She was really bright and really creative and good-looking
and all of that kind of stuff.
And so, then in my motel room that night, I
was sitting there having a drink,
and I was thinking about it.
And I inspected my motives and wrote this poem.
It's called "The Arizona Highways."
[LAUGHTER]
"I see her 17, a lady dark, turquoise on her wrists.
The land astounded by a sweeping rain becomes her skin.
Clouds begin to mend my broken eyes.
I see her singing by a broken shack.
Eyes so black, it must be dawn.
I hum along, act sober, tell her I
could love her if she dressed better, if her father got a job
and beat her more.
Eulynda, that's a name I could live with.
I could thrash away the nuns, tell them
I adopt this girl, dark, 17, silver
on her fingers in the name of the Father,
Son, and me, the Holy Ghost.
Why not?
Mormons do less with less.
Didn't her ancestors live in cliffs?
No plumbing, just a lot of love and corn?
Me, that's corn.
Pollen in her hair.
East, south, west, north, now I see my role, religious.
The Indian politician made her laugh.
Her silver jingled in her throat.
Those songs, her fingers busy on his sleeve.
Fathers forgive me.
She knows me in her Tchindii dream.
Always a little pale.
Too much bourbon in my nose.
My shoes too clean.
Belly soft as hers.
I'll move on.
My schedule says Many Farms tomorrow, then
on to Window Rock, and, finally, home, that weathered nude,
distant as the cloud I came in on.
[APPLAUSE]