[APPLAUSE]
We did that, we did that Native thing
where we just kind of walk by and hit
each other on the shoulder.
Where's Joss?
Said she would save Yeah?
OK.
I'm good.
[SPEAKING IN MOJAVE] It's not that far actually.
It's just six hours.
Yeah.
It's good to see everybody here.
Thank you to the American Indian Studies program
and to Ofelia and Larry for having me,
Alexis who carted me around this afternoon, and Cybele--
Cybele is somewhere.
And Tyler.
The good thing about bringing Tyler all this way
is every time I see him he's a little bit more tan and so--
you know, and this one looks like it's going to stick,
I think.
So this is his coloring you've got here.
But thank you for putting me up in the studio.
You know, I've had a really wonderful time.
And Susan and John.
There's John there.
We've got the Indigenous knowledge part down,
so it was good to find somebody who had that, whatever they
call digital literacy down pat.
But, I mean this has always been a good place to come and--
Thanks.
And I mean there are really good people here.
So at home we would say [SPEAKING MOJAVE]..
You know, it feels like family here.
So I'm just going to read in and out of a few things
and we'll see what happens.
So the first thing I'm going to read
is, I've been working on some prose pieces, which
should make people panic whenever you hear a poet say
I'm working on prose pieces.
You're just like, oh crap.
Maybe they don't know when to stop.
Maybe they don't, you know--
maybe it's awful.
But one of the things that I've been writing about recently
is basketball.
And people have been waiting for me to write about basketball.
And I couldn't.
I don't think I had enough time away from it to write about it.
And I wasn't sure how I would come to it.
But it turns out that the way I came to it
is through family and through my home where I learned to play.
[MUSIC - AC/DC, "THUNDERSTUCK"]
This is important, if you don't know this song.
You know AC/DC?
I'm going to--
Just wanted to give you guys some context, so--
The Mustangs.
In another life my older brother was a beautiful, muscular boy
who could jump from a standing position
and grab a missed shot right from the rim,
either hitting a waiting outlet or spring back up to drop it
into the net.
He had thin ankles, long, lean legs with high calf muscles
balled tight like fists and split like upside down hearts.
Runner's legs, jumpers legs, Indian legs.
He also had the upper body of a Mojave man,
wide-chested, broad shoulders, arms and hands
that hung down near his knees.
"Like slingshots" is what my mother always
said, meaning he was a fighter.
He played varsity basketball for our small-town high school,
the Needles Mustangs.
They wore royal blue and white.
A bright blue Mustang was painted
on the front of the gymnasium, another inside
against the brick wall, and a third
in a circle on the wooden middle half court.
Mustangs.
I have always associated them with basketball.
I have always felt them in me, tolling beneath my sternum,
drumming in my belly, hooves in my ears, jolts of muscle
in my throat, the way my brother must have felt them running
his veins in those years, breaking up and down the court.
I love my brother best in memories such as this one.
I sat in the wooden bleachers of the Needles Mustang gymnasium
with my mother, my father, and all of my brothers and sisters,
and watched my brother run out to the warm up song,
"Thunderstruck," by AC/DC.
It begins with an unhinged chant-like yell, followed
by the strike of the word "Thunder,"
and then, "Thunderstruck."
The word "Thunder" is growled 15 times,
followed by 19 war-cried versions of "Thunderstruck."
Dressed in Mustang blue tearaway warm-up pants and shirts,
my brother and his teammates, some of whom
were from our reservation, were all glide and finesse.
Their high tops barely touched the floor.
They circled the court twice before crossing it and moving
into a layup drill, while "Thunderstruck"
filled the gymnasium.
They were all the things they could ever be.
They were Mustangs.
They were young kings and conquerors.
On those nights they were forgiven for all
they would ever do wrong.
"Thunderstruck" played so loudly that I could only
see my mother's mouth opening and closing
but could not hear what she hollered to cheer my brother.
To that song they made layup after layup,
passed the ball like a planet between them,
pulled it back and forth from the floor to their hands
like a yo-yo.
I was 12-years old and I realized right there
on those bleachers the power music had over the body,
the way it commanded the thoughts to quiet
and set the mind loose.
I saw it in my brother, in those wild boys.
I saw it in my mother.
I felt it in my chest.
And so it surprised me to find my brother again in basketball.
And that's where I learned to play.
And I think I was looking for a new subject.
I was looking for a way to not write about my brother,
to find something new.
And I realized you can't run from the stories that
are in you, that they're going to come
to the surface no matter what.