This first poem is "My House is the Red Earth,"
and it's from Secrets from the Center of the World,
which was a collaboration with-- you guys know him,
is one of your community--
Stephen Strom.
And we wrote this-- we did this book together,
his images of the Southwest and of places
that I love very much.
And when I started writing poetry,
I was kind of an escapee or an immigrant,
I was from Oklahoma and my people.
But there were so much--
Oklahoma is so full of intense memory of leaving and being
forced to leave, as well as a great loss,
and yet we found so much there.
And so this part of the world took care of me for a while.
And so this poem came out of that.
And a lot of people don't know that when I started,
I wanted to be an artist, a painter,
I wasn't very good at speaking.
And I preferred doing art and drawing,
like some of my relatives, even though I
have many other ancestors and relatives who were speakers,
and I liked feeling the world out in that way.
But when I went to the University of New Mexico
and I took Navajo language and I was
hanging around mostly Navajos and a lot of Pueblo people,
and I started learning that language
and writing poetry at the same time.
Not because I really wanted to write poetry,
but because the spirit of poetry said OK, you're coming with me.
It's like no!
I don't know what to say.
But I feel like the creative spirit
is given to us to take care of, and we don't always
have a say in it.
And when it comes, you have to take care of it.
And so these little series are in gratitude.
The earth-- I think about how humans, what we
offer the earth.
What do we give to the earth?
And you look at--
and it seems--
I've wondered, what use are human beings here
to this earth?
But one conclusion I've come to is
that the earth likes our songs.
It likes to be acknowledged for the gifts and tremendous gifts,
because we wouldn't be here, nothing here,
nothing would be--
they're all gifts of the earth.
So this is in honor of these gifts.
My house is the red earth.
It could be the center of the world.
I've heard New York, Paris, Tokyo, called
the center of the world, but I say it's magnificently humble.
You could drive by and miss it, radio waves can obscure it,
words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left
to sacred, wordless form.
For instance, that fool crow, picking
through trash near the corral, understands
the center of the world as greasy scraps of fat.
Just ask him, he doesn't have to say that the earth has turned
scarlet to fierce belief after centuries
of heartbreak and laughter.
He perches on the blue ball of the sky and laughs.
If you look with the mind of the swirling earth near Shiprock,
you become the land, beautiful.
And understand how three crows at the edge of the highway,
laughing, become three crows at the edge of the world,
laughing.
Don't bother the earth's spirit who lives here.
She is working on a story.
It is the oldest story in the world, and it is delicate,
changing.
If she sees you watching, she will invite you in for coffee,
give you warm bread, and you will be
obligated to stay and listen.
But this is no ordinary story.
You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning,
the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty.
It's a story so compelling, you may never want to leave.
This is how she traps you.
See that stone finger over there?
That is the only one who ever escaped.