WEBVTT

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One of my favorite books is
this book, "From Sand Creek."

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And I think it's OK for a poet
to have a favorite book, right?

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In my early
recovery, or attempts

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at this time of
recovery in the 1970s,

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I was at the VA hospital in
alcohol and rehab program

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in Fort Lyons, Colorado.

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And I had heard about
Sand Creek where

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the massacre of Native of
Cheyenne and Arapaho people

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have taken place
in 1864, not far

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from Fort Lyons VA hospital.

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Fort Lyons used to be
one of the frontier

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forts to protect the
settlers, protect the settlers

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against the Indians.

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Well, 100 years later, were
the 1960s and 1970s and the war

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in Vietnam was taking place.

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And I thought about
the similarities.

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Vietnam in 1960s and '70s.

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1860s, '70s, '80s.

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Wars against the indigenous
peoples, Indian peoples.

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In the Great Plains and
in Arizona, the Apaches.

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And of course, in Arizona, since
it was war against the Indians,

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almost all Indians were Apaches.

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So I wrote this
book not right away,

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but over a period
of time, although I

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began note taking in the
second time I went back

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to the Fort Lyons.

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And I will read a few
sections or a few from there.

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This preface with--

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"November 29, 1864, on
that cold dawn, about 600

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Southern Cheyenne and
Arapaho people, 2/3 of them

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women and children, were
camped on a bend of Sand

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Creek in Southeastern Colorado.

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The people were at peace.

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This was expressed two months
before by Black Kettle, one

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of the principal elders
of the Cheyenne's

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in Denver to Governor John Evans
and Colonel John W. Chivington,

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head of the Colorado volunteers.

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I want you to give all
these chiefs of the soldiers

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here to understand
that we are for peace

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and that we have made
peace, that we may not

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be mistaken for enemies.

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The Reverend Colonel Chivington
and his volunteers in Fort Lyon

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troops numbering more
than 700 heavily armed men

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slaughtered 105 women
and children, and 28 men.

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A US flag presented by
President Lincoln in 1863

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to the Black Kettle
in Washington DC

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flew from a pole above
the elder's lodge

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on that gray dome.

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The people had been assured they
would be protected by the flag.

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By mid 1865, the Cheyenne
and Arapaho people

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had been driven out
of Colorado territory.

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There was a trip we
took once, and we all

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hid from the street's
eyes and townspeople.

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You wouldn't believe we
were this nation's children

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in the poem.

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Toby is sick.

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Closely, he looks
after his shadow.

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Yes, he is Indian.

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He hides and tends the shape
of his face in a mirror of Red

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and Bill's Cafe in La Junta.

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He is impossible
to talk with them,

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his frozen tongue is
frantic with prayer.

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He wants to trust.

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VA doctors tell him not to
worry, that's his problem.

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His cough is not the final
blow, but the glass wall stares

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so closely, makes him afraid.

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Closely, Toby tends his shadow.

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Conquest reach Nevada,
a warrior chief

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was assassinated by the cavalry.

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Cut into stew in pieces,
fed to other chiefs,

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and a treaty was signed.

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They'll show him.

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Ask the pilots and the porn.

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Violence is even
beautiful, mastery of pain

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is crucial to this work.

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A senator did not need
to hawk biblical phrases,

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it was all ordained and certain.

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They clamored for salvation,
those stalwart victims

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sent as messengers already
avengers for running justice

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to Colorado.

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In the VA age, you
can't be anything,

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but alien to the
combat soldiers.

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If you don't know the
glaze and sour sweat,

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all Billy would
talk about was going

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to Kansas City and freedom.

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Arkansas River is turgid
and sorrowful blood,

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I point that out to McGuire,
but he doesn't listen.

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His nights are bad dreams--

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not always, but lately.

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The VA psychologist
tells him to tell them.

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'They tried to frighten
us with their madness,

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but we know better.'

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Billy wasn't always alien.

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Finally, he listens.

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'Look, Billy, stories are as
reliable as those river stones.

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They were fierce, Billy.'

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Atrocious, shiny blades
glistening in the cold sun.

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You could smell
their sour sweat.

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As we walk back, he
tells me his secret plan.

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'Head east for Kansas, make
arrows, send word to the IRA."

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And then the last one.

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"Scholasticism and
intellectualism

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have been barriers to emotion.

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No wonder there is such a fear
of women, children, blood,

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and anger.

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Control them, and the poem.

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Anger meant nothing to them, not
even as intellectual exercise.

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Their scholars set
them away from it,

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and deemed that they should
be systematic, exclusive,

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and so deliberate that
their intellect became

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foreign to them.

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They were frightened by emotion.

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The sheer joy of being
men, of being children

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was no longer theirs.

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They feared women.

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Their scholars
deemed-- no, ordained

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that they would be trivial,
and as their blood diminished.

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But yes, they could
have been important.

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They should have seen the
thieves stealing their most

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precious treasure--

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their compassion, their anger,
their compassion, their anger."

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