WEBVTT

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This next poem comes
from the Southwest.

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Once I was on sort of a
Poetry in the Schools tour

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in both Arizona and New Mexico.

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And one of the places I went
was the Navajo reservation.

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And I visited a lot of
BIA schools up there.

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And they were your
typical BIA schools.

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They weren't all that good.

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And the students lived
on them like campuses.

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And the rules were very strict.

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The boys and girls were
separated from each other.

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But in spite of this,
everybody seemed

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to be really healthy-looking
and really cheerful.

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And it was really a good
positive experience,

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from that standpoint.

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But I couldn't help but
think about this school

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and how much better things would
be if, say, a good school came

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in there.

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I don't want to get
in trouble with BIA,

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but, quite often, I think
it's common knowledge

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that those schools aren't
the best in the world.

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So I was talking
to this one girl.

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Her name was Eulynda.

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I won't tell her last name here
because maybe somebody would

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recognize her, and I
wouldn't want her to--

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to reveal any secrets.

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So I was down there and
thinking that this one girl,

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if I could take
her away from here,

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because she had
everything going for her.

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She was really bright and
really creative and good-looking

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and all of that kind of stuff.

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And so, then in my
motel room that night, I

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was sitting there
having a drink,

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and I was thinking about it.

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And I inspected my motives
and wrote this poem.

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It's called "The
Arizona Highways."

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[LAUGHTER]

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"I see her 17, a lady dark,
turquoise on her wrists.

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The land astounded by a
sweeping rain becomes her skin.

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Clouds begin to
mend my broken eyes.

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I see her singing
by a broken shack.

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Eyes so black, it must be dawn.

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I hum along, act
sober, tell her I

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could love her if she dressed
better, if her father got a job

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and beat her more.

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Eulynda, that's a name
I could live with.

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I could thrash away
the nuns, tell them

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I adopt this girl,
dark, 17, silver

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on her fingers in the
name of the Father,

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Son, and me, the Holy Ghost.

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Why not?

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Mormons do less with less.

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Didn't her ancestors
live in cliffs?

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No plumbing, just a
lot of love and corn?

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Me, that's corn.

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Pollen in her hair.

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East, south, west, north,
now I see my role, religious.

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The Indian politician
made her laugh.

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Her silver jingled
in her throat.

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Those songs, her fingers
busy on his sleeve.

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Fathers forgive me.

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She knows me in
her Tchindii dream.

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Always a little pale.

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Too much bourbon in my nose.

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My shoes too clean.

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Belly soft as hers.

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I'll move on.

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My schedule says Many
Farms tomorrow, then

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on to Window Rock, and, finally,
home, that weathered nude,

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distant as the
cloud I came in on.

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[APPLAUSE]

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