WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040 align:middle line:84% OFELIA ZEPEDA: --Oneida from the Green Bay area, 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:03.460 align:middle line:90% Green Bay, Wisconsin. 00:00:03.460 --> 00:00:06.870 align:middle line:84% So we're changing geography a little bit here. 00:00:06.870 --> 00:00:10.200 align:middle line:84% Her academic training and background 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:12.720 align:middle line:84% include an undergraduate degree from the University 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:16.320 align:middle line:84% of Wisconsin and a master's of fine arts 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:19.110 align:middle line:84% from the University of Montana at Missoula, 00:00:19.110 --> 00:00:21.510 align:middle line:84% where she studied under Richard Hugo 00:00:21.510 --> 00:00:25.050 align:middle line:84% and was also a fellow student of James Welch, who we'll 00:00:25.050 --> 00:00:29.070 align:middle line:90% have here after spring break. 00:00:29.070 --> 00:00:32.460 align:middle line:84% Roberta is currently faculty at the University of Wisconsin Eau 00:00:32.460 --> 00:00:34.950 align:middle line:84% Claire and is also a graduate student 00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:37.020 align:middle line:84% at the University of Minnesota, working 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:40.740 align:middle line:90% on her doctorate degree. 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:44.100 align:middle line:84% Roberta has published in various magazines and anthologies, 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:48.090 align:middle line:84% including Carriers of the Dream Wheel, American Poetry 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:52.140 align:middle line:84% Review, The Nation, and North American Review. 00:00:52.140 --> 00:00:54.390 align:middle line:84% She is also the author of Star Quilt, 00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:56.670 align:middle line:90% a collection of her poems. 00:00:56.670 --> 00:00:58.590 align:middle line:84% And she's currently in the process 00:00:58.590 --> 00:01:01.710 align:middle line:84% of doing a biography of her grandmother, who 00:01:01.710 --> 00:01:05.910 align:middle line:84% was one of the first Native American physicians. 00:01:05.910 --> 00:01:09.240 align:middle line:84% This morning, I had the pleasure of being 00:01:09.240 --> 00:01:12.060 align:middle line:84% with Roberta and some of our students 00:01:12.060 --> 00:01:15.000 align:middle line:84% as she spoke to us of her background. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:21.330 align:middle line:84% And I not only listened to her, but I watched her speak. 00:01:21.330 --> 00:01:24.840 align:middle line:84% And she reminded me so much of another Seneca woman, 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:29.260 align:middle line:84% another Iroquois woman who I knew for some time. 00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:33.420 align:middle line:84% And similarly, as my Seneca friend 00:01:33.420 --> 00:01:36.900 align:middle line:84% used to speak about the land in the east. 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:40.140 align:middle line:84% And their situation there, and how different and often 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:44.280 align:middle line:84% how similar situations are with the Indigenous people 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:46.500 align:middle line:90% here in the Southwest. 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:49.500 align:middle line:84% But in watching her, I also remembered 00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:54.405 align:middle line:84% what such a strong and handsome people the Iroquois are. 00:01:54.405 --> 00:01:56.940 align:middle line:90% 00:01:56.940 --> 00:01:59.820 align:middle line:84% I would like to think that perhaps sometime, 00:01:59.820 --> 00:02:02.850 align:middle line:84% if something should happen to our world, 00:02:02.850 --> 00:02:04.680 align:middle line:84% and if there was a remote possibility 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:07.770 align:middle line:84% that we were to come out of it, I 00:02:07.770 --> 00:02:11.160 align:middle line:84% think that I would like to follow these Iroquois women out 00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:12.210 align:middle line:90% of here. 00:02:12.210 --> 00:02:15.390 align:middle line:84% Iroquois women, of course, being the Seneca and the Cayuga 00:02:15.390 --> 00:02:18.900 align:middle line:84% and the Onondaga and certainly the Oneida. 00:02:18.900 --> 00:02:21.450 align:middle line:84% So would you please welcome Roberta Hill Whiteman. 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:36.140 align:middle line:90% 00:02:36.140 --> 00:02:38.140 align:middle line:84% ROBERTA J. HILL: Thank you for the introduction. 00:02:38.140 --> 00:02:42.345 align:middle line:84% I'm very honored to be here and to share with you my work. 00:02:42.345 --> 00:02:47.030 align:middle line:90% 00:02:47.030 --> 00:02:49.100 align:middle line:84% And this has been quite an experience, 00:02:49.100 --> 00:02:53.840 align:middle line:84% to see the interest that people have here in the literature. 00:02:53.840 --> 00:03:00.920 align:middle line:84% And I'll just begin by reading a few poems from Star Quilt. 00:03:00.920 --> 00:03:04.385 align:middle line:84% And then I'll read some other work that is much more recent. 00:03:04.385 --> 00:03:07.490 align:middle line:90% 00:03:07.490 --> 00:03:12.230 align:middle line:84% My husband and I met in the late '70s. 00:03:12.230 --> 00:03:18.960 align:middle line:84% And when we met we had both lived on opposite ends 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:19.740 align:middle line:90% of the country. 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:20.890 align:middle line:90% He's in Wyoming. 00:03:20.890 --> 00:03:21.930 align:middle line:90% He was in Wyoming. 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:24.600 align:middle line:90% And I was in Wisconsin. 00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:27.900 align:middle line:84% And so when we first then started 00:03:27.900 --> 00:03:30.870 align:middle line:84% getting together and meeting one another, 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:34.260 align:middle line:84% I wrote a poem that's included in Star Quilt. 00:03:34.260 --> 00:03:36.310 align:middle line:90% And it's a love poem. 00:03:36.310 --> 00:03:40.600 align:middle line:84% It's called "A Song for What Never Arrives." 00:03:40.600 --> 00:03:43.880 align:middle line:90% 00:03:43.880 --> 00:03:48.890 align:middle line:84% "We aren't like those who kiss like fishes, lightly, 00:03:48.890 --> 00:03:52.280 align:middle line:90% easily, quickly gone. 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:59.030 align:middle line:84% Let's sink entwined to those reaches beyond this human world 00:03:59.030 --> 00:04:04.460 align:middle line:84% where tongues of ripples form familiar kinship. 00:04:04.460 --> 00:04:10.370 align:middle line:84% Inside me, summer leaves have begun a meditation. 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:14.360 align:middle line:84% And I wake from dreams as one might wake 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:18.890 align:middle line:84% from fever, bewildered by the smoke billowing 00:04:18.890 --> 00:04:21.930 align:middle line:90% from my neighbor's chimney. 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:29.310 align:middle line:84% When the vacant sapphire sky finds an alley of black trees, 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:34.800 align:middle line:84% I feel you haunt an unknown layer of my heart. 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:39.000 align:middle line:84% How can I set in order this debris? 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.400 align:middle line:90% It's all I am. 00:04:41.400 --> 00:04:48.510 align:middle line:84% Charmed by illusion, by nature consistently cruel and kind. 00:04:48.510 --> 00:04:51.270 align:middle line:90% Born to confusion. 00:04:51.270 --> 00:04:57.150 align:middle line:84% Perhaps we shouldn't plan to arrive at the end of love, 00:04:57.150 --> 00:05:01.980 align:middle line:84% but should move inside its mystery like chickadees, 00:05:01.980 --> 00:05:09.720 align:middle line:84% those acrobats darting in and out of branches paled by frost. 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:15.930 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it's best we accept the thrum of water alone. 00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:21.090 align:middle line:84% Like weeds, we grow submerged in shadows, 00:05:21.090 --> 00:05:25.350 align:middle line:84% feeding on the last fire of a stone. 00:05:25.350 --> 00:05:29.400 align:middle line:84% Yet, we can emerge from our lagoon. 00:05:29.400 --> 00:05:35.490 align:middle line:84% So tangled up, the children, reaching for one tinted bloom, 00:05:35.490 --> 00:05:40.020 align:middle line:84% will gather both, blazing quietly as stars." 00:05:40.020 --> 00:05:45.490 align:middle line:90% 00:05:45.490 --> 00:05:48.010 align:middle line:84% My husband and I married in 1980. 00:05:48.010 --> 00:05:52.090 align:middle line:84% And we have children who are 17, 16, and 15. 00:05:52.090 --> 00:05:53.920 align:middle line:90% So we work real quickly. 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:55.120 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:56.860 align:middle line:90% They grew real quickly. 00:05:56.860 --> 00:06:00.160 align:middle line:84% Actually, it was our second marriage for both of us. 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:02.920 align:middle line:84% And the children are from our earlier marriages. 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:06.520 align:middle line:84% And so we had to become a blended family. 00:06:06.520 --> 00:06:10.060 align:middle line:84% And one of the experiences that we had-- 00:06:10.060 --> 00:06:11.680 align:middle line:84% the children met each other when they 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:13.480 align:middle line:90% were three, four, and five. 00:06:13.480 --> 00:06:16.210 align:middle line:84% And one of the experiences that I treasure 00:06:16.210 --> 00:06:21.340 align:middle line:84% in those early years is that we went to a park on Mother's Day 00:06:21.340 --> 00:06:26.350 align:middle line:84% called Newport Beach, which if you're familiar with Wisconsin, 00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:29.050 align:middle line:84% it's shaped like a hand, and then the thumb. 00:06:29.050 --> 00:06:33.030 align:middle line:84% The park is at the very end of the thumb in Wisconsin, 00:06:33.030 --> 00:06:35.440 align:middle line:90% at the end of that peninsula. 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:38.200 align:middle line:84% And it was an amazing kind of place. 00:06:38.200 --> 00:06:42.250 align:middle line:84% I had never seen such a park with so many different kinds 00:06:42.250 --> 00:06:44.770 align:middle line:90% of ecologies. 00:06:44.770 --> 00:06:49.660 align:middle line:84% And we went on a trail called Lynn Point Trail. 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:53.140 align:middle line:84% And it was the experience of watching 00:06:53.140 --> 00:06:57.100 align:middle line:84% these young children feel so very at home there, 00:06:57.100 --> 00:07:00.040 align:middle line:90% wanting to stay there. 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:02.500 align:middle line:84% They wanted to dance through the park, 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:05.410 align:middle line:84% and they wanted to gather things and stay there. 00:07:05.410 --> 00:07:07.730 align:middle line:84% And yet, we knew that, of course, 00:07:07.730 --> 00:07:11.350 align:middle line:90% we wouldn't be able to do that. 00:07:11.350 --> 00:07:15.670 align:middle line:84% The poem is called "Lynn Point Trail." 00:07:15.670 --> 00:07:21.520 align:middle line:84% "That rare day, we played for real and left traces 00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:26.870 align:middle line:84% of our walking sticks in last year's leaves. 00:07:26.870 --> 00:07:31.520 align:middle line:84% Lynn Point Trail hit us in rushing green, 00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:37.010 align:middle line:84% in the thick dark of Douglas fir, where death conceals 00:07:37.010 --> 00:07:41.060 align:middle line:90% itself in blazing moss. 00:07:41.060 --> 00:07:44.600 align:middle line:84% Leading us in the journey, our children 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:50.750 align:middle line:84% stomp-danced until the ferns bristled with the authority 00:07:50.750 --> 00:07:53.540 align:middle line:90% of hooded cobras. 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:57.110 align:middle line:84% When they turn to us for answers, 00:07:57.110 --> 00:08:03.920 align:middle line:84% we began to see fronds tremble with a delicate weight, 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:08.960 align:middle line:90% as if infinity stirred the stem. 00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:13.130 align:middle line:84% The scattered light peopled each ravine. 00:08:13.130 --> 00:08:18.080 align:middle line:84% We longed for woods this deep, for this glen 00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:26.040 align:middle line:84% where you knelt to photograph a gleam inside a bridge of stone. 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:30.570 align:middle line:84% Was it then Missy wouldn't go on? 00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:34.650 align:middle line:84% Our youngest girl wanted to believe home 00:08:34.650 --> 00:08:37.890 align:middle line:90% could be this emerald grotto. 00:08:37.890 --> 00:08:42.720 align:middle line:84% Nearby, we heard the breaking sigh of waves, 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:45.930 align:middle line:84% while bickering in a bird staccato, 00:08:45.930 --> 00:08:50.520 align:middle line:84% she kept her gesture firm, though naive. 00:08:50.520 --> 00:08:53.430 align:middle line:90% Here, we belonged. 00:08:53.430 --> 00:08:56.940 align:middle line:84% A cuckoo's call echoed in the sun. 00:08:56.940 --> 00:09:02.880 align:middle line:84% I, too, wish we could have lived near the tilted horizon, 00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:08.070 align:middle line:84% close to the fluttering mat that weaves dun fly 00:09:08.070 --> 00:09:11.070 align:middle line:90% and dune into one. 00:09:11.070 --> 00:09:15.330 align:middle line:84% With songs for granite and bluer skies, 00:09:15.330 --> 00:09:20.310 align:middle line:84% children gathered rain-eroded shells. 00:09:20.310 --> 00:09:26.250 align:middle line:84% Let these rocks be eggs until the tides scorch them 00:09:26.250 --> 00:09:32.235 align:middle line:84% or until the heart reveals at last the grace we lost." 00:09:32.235 --> 00:09:42.690 align:middle line:90% 00:09:42.690 --> 00:09:45.360 align:middle line:84% There was one poem that I sent when people 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:47.880 align:middle line:90% asked me to send some poems. 00:09:47.880 --> 00:09:51.780 align:middle line:84% And it comes from the experience of traveling out 00:09:51.780 --> 00:09:57.270 align:middle line:84% to Wind River, Wyoming, a totally different kind of land 00:09:57.270 --> 00:09:59.370 align:middle line:90% than what I'm familiar with. 00:09:59.370 --> 00:10:02.790 align:middle line:84% I'm familiar with woods and lakes and a closed 00:10:02.790 --> 00:10:06.480 align:middle line:90% horizon and heavy clouds. 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:09.030 align:middle line:84% And out on the Wind River Reservation, 00:10:09.030 --> 00:10:11.520 align:middle line:84% it's very much like this, where you can see mountains 00:10:11.520 --> 00:10:12.400 align:middle line:90% in the distance. 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:17.070 align:middle line:84% And you can see all kinds of levels of land. 00:10:17.070 --> 00:10:19.980 align:middle line:84% And while we were out there at a place 00:10:19.980 --> 00:10:25.800 align:middle line:84% called Dinwoody, it's called, near a place that's 00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:30.300 align:middle line:84% called The Lake That Roars, there were some women that 00:10:30.300 --> 00:10:34.650 align:middle line:84% came to visit or stop and chat with my husband and I. 00:10:34.650 --> 00:10:36.810 align:middle line:84% And they were magnificent-looking women, 00:10:36.810 --> 00:10:37.740 align:middle line:90% I thought. 00:10:37.740 --> 00:10:39.270 align:middle line:90% They were in their 50s. 00:10:39.270 --> 00:10:42.570 align:middle line:84% And they were on horses, on horseback. 00:10:42.570 --> 00:10:47.670 align:middle line:84% And they had this sort of presence about them 00:10:47.670 --> 00:10:52.440 align:middle line:84% that made me feel very happy to meet them and to watch them. 00:10:52.440 --> 00:10:54.630 align:middle line:84% And after they had left, my husband 00:10:54.630 --> 00:10:59.490 align:middle line:84% started telling me how they were related to one of his relatives 00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:02.820 align:middle line:84% and the kind of life that they had lived. 00:11:02.820 --> 00:11:07.110 align:middle line:84% And that people didn't always treasure sisters 00:11:07.110 --> 00:11:09.690 align:middle line:84% who lived very close to their mother 00:11:09.690 --> 00:11:14.850 align:middle line:84% and who managed to help her raise her cattle, who 00:11:14.850 --> 00:11:17.070 align:middle line:84% would have been thought in some contexts, 00:11:17.070 --> 00:11:19.260 align:middle line:90% I guess, as old maids. 00:11:19.260 --> 00:11:22.410 align:middle line:84% But they were really inspiring, I thought. 00:11:22.410 --> 00:11:25.440 align:middle line:84% And so I wrote a poem for them and for their relative. 00:11:25.440 --> 00:11:28.320 align:middle line:84% And it's called "Home Before Dark." 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:32.970 align:middle line:84% And it incorporates a bit of the legend of the place. 00:11:32.970 --> 00:11:40.690 align:middle line:84% There are stories in that area about a white buffalo who 00:11:40.690 --> 00:11:43.390 align:middle line:84% was being chased by Shoshones and went up 00:11:43.390 --> 00:11:45.160 align:middle line:90% into this lake area. 00:11:45.160 --> 00:11:49.190 align:middle line:84% And he took his herd out onto the ice. 00:11:49.190 --> 00:11:52.030 align:middle line:84% And when he was driven out onto the ice, 00:11:52.030 --> 00:11:54.100 align:middle line:84% the weight of the herd on the ice 00:11:54.100 --> 00:11:57.130 align:middle line:84% caused them all to fall under the water. 00:11:57.130 --> 00:11:58.870 align:middle line:90% And they disappeared. 00:11:58.870 --> 00:12:03.460 align:middle line:84% But the Shoshones say that that buffalo bull is still there, 00:12:03.460 --> 00:12:05.860 align:middle line:84% because you can still hear it bellowing 00:12:05.860 --> 00:12:09.280 align:middle line:90% at times in those canyons. 00:12:09.280 --> 00:12:13.300 align:middle line:90% The poem "Home Before Dark." 00:12:13.300 --> 00:12:17.800 align:middle line:84% "From mountain ridges west, a reluctant sun 00:12:17.800 --> 00:12:23.710 align:middle line:84% alarms clouds to the east, giving them the salmon tint 00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:27.940 align:middle line:90% of dawn long before its due. 00:12:27.940 --> 00:12:33.400 align:middle line:84% Other clouds crop indigo in distant canyons. 00:12:33.400 --> 00:12:38.410 align:middle line:84% Crowheart Butte floats in this last light 00:12:38.410 --> 00:12:43.720 align:middle line:84% as two Shoshone women gallop home before dark. 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:49.390 align:middle line:84% Rain sharpens the wind blending the smell of damp Earth 00:12:49.390 --> 00:12:55.270 align:middle line:84% and sagebrush with the sound of their sorrel horses. 00:12:55.270 --> 00:12:59.470 align:middle line:84% Sunlight on the brims of their cowboy hats, 00:12:59.470 --> 00:13:04.510 align:middle line:84% these sisters, close to 50, ride joyously 00:13:04.510 --> 00:13:08.500 align:middle line:90% over this land of 1,000 levels. 00:13:08.500 --> 00:13:14.800 align:middle line:84% Beaded roses flashing from their buckles, they leap wagon ruts, 00:13:14.800 --> 00:13:18.910 align:middle line:90% trot over the plateau. 00:13:18.910 --> 00:13:25.000 align:middle line:84% Some folks call them backward, say they wear shawls in town, 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:31.720 align:middle line:84% herd livestock for their mother, tan hides and never married. 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:36.880 align:middle line:84% Clouds group behind them over Black Mountain. 00:13:36.880 --> 00:13:39.970 align:middle line:84% The women head for a southerly range, 00:13:39.970 --> 00:13:45.700 align:middle line:84% away from the Lake That Roars, where Shoshone warriors once 00:13:45.700 --> 00:13:49.720 align:middle line:84% hunted a buffalo bull and his herd. 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:55.840 align:middle line:84% White as a glacier and twice as mean, he thundered on to ice, 00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:59.020 align:middle line:90% his herd right behind. 00:13:59.020 --> 00:14:06.790 align:middle line:84% Snow crust enveloping their heavy size, they went down. 00:14:06.790 --> 00:14:11.410 align:middle line:84% Since then, the bull bellows for revenge. 00:14:11.410 --> 00:14:15.400 align:middle line:84% Some say it's only wind through canyons. 00:14:15.400 --> 00:14:20.860 align:middle line:84% But others tell of men who've tasted forbidden meat 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:25.000 align:middle line:90% and changed to shaggy heads. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:28.990 align:middle line:84% Clouds stamp out ledges and ravines, 00:14:28.990 --> 00:14:35.320 align:middle line:84% careen closer, hiding the more difficult terrain. 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:39.070 align:middle line:84% Now one shadow moving toward the timberline, 00:14:39.070 --> 00:14:41.320 align:middle line:90% these women hurry on. 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:47.110 align:middle line:84% Behind them, on Black Mountain, snow in every crevice 00:14:47.110 --> 00:14:48.910 align:middle line:90% brilliant as a cry." 00:14:48.910 --> 00:14:53.630 align:middle line:90% 00:14:53.630 --> 00:15:00.500 align:middle line:84% I was very interested in the title of this series, Poetics 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:01.890 align:middle line:90% and Politics. 00:15:01.890 --> 00:15:05.150 align:middle line:84% And I thought, perhaps I should put all my poems 00:15:05.150 --> 00:15:08.660 align:middle line:84% that are political toward one section 00:15:08.660 --> 00:15:11.810 align:middle line:84% and then put the other poems in another section. 00:15:11.810 --> 00:15:15.050 align:middle line:84% And then I realized that all poems are political. 00:15:15.050 --> 00:15:18.830 align:middle line:84% And so some you may hear are more political than others. 00:15:18.830 --> 00:15:20.330 align:middle line:90% But I'm building up to that. 00:15:20.330 --> 00:15:21.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:15:21.920 --> 00:15:23.702 align:middle line:90% Making friends. 00:15:23.702 --> 00:15:24.202 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:15:24.202 --> 00:15:27.470 align:middle line:90% 00:15:27.470 --> 00:15:31.190 align:middle line:90% This next poem is about my son. 00:15:31.190 --> 00:15:36.710 align:middle line:90% And he's about 17 now. 00:15:36.710 --> 00:15:39.230 align:middle line:84% But when he was a bit younger, he 00:15:39.230 --> 00:15:43.160 align:middle line:84% wanted to go across country with a group of people 00:15:43.160 --> 00:15:46.370 align:middle line:84% from Ireland, some young men who came over from Ireland, 00:15:46.370 --> 00:15:51.020 align:middle line:84% to get some relief from the kinds of encounters 00:15:51.020 --> 00:15:52.670 align:middle line:90% that they were having there. 00:15:52.670 --> 00:15:59.810 align:middle line:84% And he went across to California over to the-- 00:15:59.810 --> 00:16:04.610 align:middle line:84% I think it's one of those large parks just north of Los 00:16:04.610 --> 00:16:05.700 align:middle line:90% Angeles. 00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:09.740 align:middle line:84% And it was my first experience in having 00:16:09.740 --> 00:16:11.510 align:middle line:84% him say, I'm taking off, and I'm going 00:16:11.510 --> 00:16:15.980 align:middle line:84% to be gone for a long time, and I'll see you around, Ma. 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:18.860 align:middle line:84% And so I had to get used to the fact that he was growing up, 00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:20.720 align:middle line:90% and I had to let him go. 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:25.550 align:middle line:84% And we have a saying at home that my father often 00:16:25.550 --> 00:16:28.220 align:middle line:84% reminded me, and I remind my children, 00:16:28.220 --> 00:16:32.600 align:middle line:84% is that our real parents are the Earth and sky. 00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:35.960 align:middle line:84% And that I am just helping the Earth along. 00:16:35.960 --> 00:16:39.750 align:middle line:84% And their father's just helping the sky along. 00:16:39.750 --> 00:16:45.680 align:middle line:84% And so in this poem, I allow myself to find 00:16:45.680 --> 00:16:48.500 align:middle line:90% some comfort in that process. 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:52.460 align:middle line:90% It's called "Letting Go." 00:16:52.460 --> 00:16:56.960 align:middle line:84% "Under blue dome, where mountain spirits wander, 00:16:56.960 --> 00:17:02.300 align:middle line:84% he curls in a green bedroll, listening, listening, 00:17:02.300 --> 00:17:04.940 align:middle line:90% 13 years old. 00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:10.520 align:middle line:84% When the tent flap flutters, he remembers TJ stuffing GORP 00:17:10.520 --> 00:17:15.920 align:middle line:84% into his backpack, the grizzlies snorting all night long 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:21.770 align:middle line:84% through their camp in Sequoia, until the dawn ranger reported, 00:17:21.770 --> 00:17:23.510 align:middle line:90% bear disturbance. 00:17:23.510 --> 00:17:25.970 align:middle line:90% No one injured. 00:17:25.970 --> 00:17:30.980 align:middle line:84% In a wind-swollen flash of sparks and ash, 00:17:30.980 --> 00:17:36.740 align:middle line:84% I hope he hears a mountain spirit dancing nearby, 00:17:36.740 --> 00:17:43.700 align:middle line:84% her stony breath pressing him as much as the womanly night. 00:17:43.700 --> 00:17:49.640 align:middle line:84% I had to let him go, my gangly eagle child, struggling 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:53.840 align:middle line:84% to ride currents of life's uplifting wind. 00:17:53.840 --> 00:18:01.370 align:middle line:84% Yet, then, as now and always, when pines mimic ocean swells, 00:18:01.370 --> 00:18:06.920 align:middle line:84% I want his radiant childhood to carry him back to me 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:13.920 align:middle line:84% like phosphorus returning to a warm southern sea. 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:18.210 align:middle line:84% Even though night's rapture grows between us, 00:18:18.210 --> 00:18:25.050 align:middle line:84% each time he telephones, distant as my own myth of mountains, 00:18:25.050 --> 00:18:29.610 align:middle line:84% I listen for the shift in tone that tells me 00:18:29.610 --> 00:18:33.120 align:middle line:84% he's encountered his true mother. 00:18:33.120 --> 00:18:39.150 align:middle line:84% At daybreak, her iridescent song drifts from a canyon 00:18:39.150 --> 00:18:41.590 align:middle line:90% hidden in our dreams. 00:18:41.590 --> 00:18:46.120 align:middle line:84% And we seem to rise from our own power, 00:18:46.120 --> 00:18:49.440 align:middle line:90% so skilled is her vision. 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:54.900 align:middle line:84% I had to let him go, encounter his true father in rings 00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:59.850 align:middle line:90% of even star shine and boulders. 00:18:59.850 --> 00:19:03.960 align:middle line:84% Perched on a limb of a salt-rimmed tree, 00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:09.150 align:middle line:84% watching the heavy sea brighten as twilight grows, 00:19:09.150 --> 00:19:15.960 align:middle line:84% I hope he'll learn manhood needs both action and repose. 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:20.880 align:middle line:84% How I long to save him from the miseries of war. 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:27.180 align:middle line:84% Enough have died so far in this quest for empire. 00:19:27.180 --> 00:19:32.100 align:middle line:84% His true parents strengthen his willingness to love. 00:19:32.100 --> 00:19:36.510 align:middle line:84% His high-strung mirth in the boardwalk's glare. 00:19:36.510 --> 00:19:41.610 align:middle line:84% His dragging TJ from the undertow. 00:19:41.610 --> 00:19:46.920 align:middle line:84% Cicadas flutter their flimsy but persistent wings 00:19:46.920 --> 00:19:53.940 align:middle line:84% until the buzzsaw of their passion stings July heat. 00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:59.670 align:middle line:84% As storm clouds rise and rains pummel oaks, 00:19:59.670 --> 00:20:05.910 align:middle line:84% I notice in a lightning flash the road's gone thin. 00:20:05.910 --> 00:20:09.660 align:middle line:84% Suffering this sea change, I peek again 00:20:09.660 --> 00:20:11.790 align:middle line:90% from the kitchen window. 00:20:11.790 --> 00:20:15.600 align:middle line:84% Every light is on, and every curtain opened." 00:20:15.600 --> 00:20:20.730 align:middle line:90% 00:20:20.730 --> 00:20:25.890 align:middle line:84% One of those things that many Native people have in common 00:20:25.890 --> 00:20:30.720 align:middle line:84% is the kind of foods that we grow and care about. 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:35.950 align:middle line:84% And as much as I can, wherever I am, I try to like to grow corn, 00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:39.480 align:middle line:84% and if possible, beans and squash and maybe 00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:42.090 align:middle line:90% a few other things also. 00:20:42.090 --> 00:20:44.160 align:middle line:84% And sometimes I'm real successful, 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:48.360 align:middle line:84% and sometimes I'm not real successful. 00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:51.720 align:middle line:84% But the thing that's amazing about corn if you think of it 00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:56.550 align:middle line:84% is that it creates so much of itself 00:20:56.550 --> 00:20:59.250 align:middle line:84% that it's one of those food crops 00:20:59.250 --> 00:21:02.670 align:middle line:84% that enables us to have a democracy. 00:21:02.670 --> 00:21:06.270 align:middle line:84% Because it creates so many seeds from itself that 00:21:06.270 --> 00:21:09.480 align:middle line:84% it offers us an abundance of food. 00:21:09.480 --> 00:21:13.230 align:middle line:84% And so I like to think of that, and I like to think of the fact 00:21:13.230 --> 00:21:16.110 align:middle line:90% that it's male and female. 00:21:16.110 --> 00:21:21.540 align:middle line:84% So that when you go out into a cornfield in mid-summer, 00:21:21.540 --> 00:21:24.150 align:middle line:84% think of all the energies that are 00:21:24.150 --> 00:21:27.330 align:middle line:84% moving through the cornfield between the male 00:21:27.330 --> 00:21:28.980 align:middle line:90% and female corn. 00:21:28.980 --> 00:21:31.830 align:middle line:84% You can kind of feel it sometimes. 00:21:31.830 --> 00:21:34.380 align:middle line:90% So I wrote a poem. 00:21:34.380 --> 00:21:36.585 align:middle line:84% It's like a song, called "Praising Corn." 00:21:36.585 --> 00:21:39.450 align:middle line:90% 00:21:39.450 --> 00:21:42.990 align:middle line:84% "Green spiral meeting summer sun. 00:21:42.990 --> 00:21:47.460 align:middle line:84% Green vertigo unwinding from the ground. 00:21:47.460 --> 00:21:53.100 align:middle line:84% Green shoot like a tongue, tasting Earth and rain. 00:21:53.100 --> 00:21:59.040 align:middle line:84% Mirror of our movement, swirling like water down a drain. 00:21:59.040 --> 00:22:05.310 align:middle line:84% Long leaves flashing big as banners, a string of dewdrops 00:22:05.310 --> 00:22:08.250 align:middle line:90% rippling to the centers. 00:22:08.250 --> 00:22:13.860 align:middle line:84% Young men with diamond cuffs and open arms whose headdresses 00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:21.390 align:middle line:84% toss in wind and sun like ones accustomed to dance and drum. 00:22:21.390 --> 00:22:25.920 align:middle line:84% You've garnered the sun's flowers in your leaves. 00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:29.640 align:middle line:90% We hoe and hoe, tear away weeds. 00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:31.860 align:middle line:90% You soak up rain. 00:22:31.860 --> 00:22:36.750 align:middle line:90% Toss your pollen seven rows. 00:22:36.750 --> 00:22:41.400 align:middle line:84% Young women catch it, grow all in a season, 00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:47.730 align:middle line:84% ready to give at the height of summer, ready to be cut down 00:22:47.730 --> 00:22:54.720 align:middle line:84% when night hurls meteors and nighthawks journey south. 00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:59.520 align:middle line:84% Thundering and tumbling under gunpowder clouds. 00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:04.275 align:middle line:84% Beautiful spirits' corn, because of you, we live." 00:23:04.275 --> 00:23:14.610 align:middle line:90% 00:23:14.610 --> 00:23:20.640 align:middle line:84% This next poem came from reading a work by a woman named 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:22.320 align:middle line:90% Rigoberta Menchu. 00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:25.740 align:middle line:84% I'm sure many of you are familiar with it. 00:23:25.740 --> 00:23:28.860 align:middle line:84% And I was very struck by the kinds of experiences 00:23:28.860 --> 00:23:30.990 align:middle line:84% that she had and the willingness that she 00:23:30.990 --> 00:23:36.360 align:middle line:84% had to speak about them and to share them with people. 00:23:36.360 --> 00:23:37.770 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that really 00:23:37.770 --> 00:23:42.180 align:middle line:84% struck me was when she said she wanted to be acknowledged 00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:44.820 align:middle line:84% as a human being, I thought that it 00:23:44.820 --> 00:23:48.690 align:middle line:84% was a very long kind of a process, beginning, 00:23:48.690 --> 00:23:53.400 align:middle line:84% if you think, with Columbus, for Native peoples to be recognized 00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:55.720 align:middle line:90% as human beings. 00:23:55.720 --> 00:23:57.960 align:middle line:84% And I felt a very strong connection 00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:01.290 align:middle line:84% to the people in Guatemala and wrote 00:24:01.290 --> 00:24:05.850 align:middle line:84% a poem that uses some of the mythology 00:24:05.850 --> 00:24:10.380 align:middle line:84% from down there to talk about the connections 00:24:10.380 --> 00:24:13.590 align:middle line:84% that we have to the struggle going on 00:24:13.590 --> 00:24:17.670 align:middle line:84% for the people, the Indian people all up 00:24:17.670 --> 00:24:24.570 align:middle line:84% and down this continent, but particularly in Guatemala. 00:24:24.570 --> 00:24:27.810 align:middle line:84% And she said, I fight so that they will recognize me 00:24:27.810 --> 00:24:30.810 align:middle line:90% and treat me like a human being. 00:24:30.810 --> 00:24:33.750 align:middle line:84% And the poem is called "Acknowledgment." 00:24:33.750 --> 00:24:36.420 align:middle line:90% 00:24:36.420 --> 00:24:40.200 align:middle line:84% "Listen, for the Lord of the Near and Close 00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:46.950 align:middle line:84% comes to make you see in steam rising from coffee, 00:24:46.950 --> 00:24:52.200 align:middle line:84% smoke from bodies burning in Panzos. 00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:57.330 align:middle line:84% Sometime he'll have you taste in your chocolate bars 00:24:57.330 --> 00:25:01.830 align:middle line:84% that bitterness children carry when they dare not 00:25:01.830 --> 00:25:05.370 align:middle line:90% bury their bludgeoned mothers. 00:25:05.370 --> 00:25:09.930 align:middle line:84% On the backs of owls, Izquic, Woman's Blood, 00:25:09.930 --> 00:25:14.340 align:middle line:84% flew out of smoldering hells, carrying 00:25:14.340 --> 00:25:18.270 align:middle line:84% within her twins who restored freedom 00:25:18.270 --> 00:25:21.240 align:middle line:90% to those sunlit mountains. 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:27.570 align:middle line:84% Sometimes she'll have you smell in the red and fragrant flowers 00:25:27.570 --> 00:25:31.360 align:middle line:84% the hearts of boy soldiers hanging in trees. 00:25:31.360 --> 00:25:34.020 align:middle line:90% 00:25:34.020 --> 00:25:38.100 align:middle line:84% Where is the mirror that makes all things shine? 00:25:38.100 --> 00:25:40.710 align:middle line:90% The night winds, my lord. 00:25:40.710 --> 00:25:45.420 align:middle line:84% He cleans the bodies flung in ravines and comforts 00:25:45.420 --> 00:25:51.060 align:middle line:84% aching women standing before their fragile fires. 00:25:51.060 --> 00:25:55.830 align:middle line:84% His breath's a spiral, wide as this galaxy, 00:25:55.830 --> 00:25:59.610 align:middle line:90% where nothing is obscured. 00:25:59.610 --> 00:26:02.040 align:middle line:84% Obsidian Butterfly will force you 00:26:02.040 --> 00:26:07.710 align:middle line:84% to see how children sleep in a cardboard box year 00:26:07.710 --> 00:26:10.170 align:middle line:90% after tremulous year. 00:26:10.170 --> 00:26:16.080 align:middle line:84% In the span of their hands, onions, gruel, and a dangerous 00:26:16.080 --> 00:26:20.280 align:middle line:84% abyss for the people of this sun. 00:26:20.280 --> 00:26:26.640 align:middle line:84% In clouds and mist, their suffering moves. 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:29.010 align:middle line:90% Something comes to wake you. 00:26:29.010 --> 00:26:31.950 align:middle line:84% Something comes without faltering. 00:26:31.950 --> 00:26:36.000 align:middle line:84% Can you feel it in the twilight, in your fruits 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:40.230 align:middle line:84% and in your cheeses, in your signatures? 00:26:40.230 --> 00:26:43.650 align:middle line:84% The gods and goddesses are talking together, 00:26:43.650 --> 00:26:49.470 align:middle line:84% scanning dumpsters and smog, nuclear playgrounds. 00:26:49.470 --> 00:26:52.620 align:middle line:84% They soothe cholera-stricken geese 00:26:52.620 --> 00:26:56.550 align:middle line:90% and the broken feet of coyotes. 00:26:56.550 --> 00:26:59.010 align:middle line:84% In their diminishing forests they 00:26:59.010 --> 00:27:02.580 align:middle line:84% meet, counting the heartbeats it will 00:27:02.580 --> 00:27:07.590 align:middle line:90% take to make each face sublime. 00:27:07.590 --> 00:27:11.220 align:middle line:84% Will you acknowledge the love and faith 00:27:11.220 --> 00:27:13.980 align:middle line:90% of our restless Earth? 00:27:13.980 --> 00:27:18.600 align:middle line:84% Or will you claim the sufferings too far south 00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:22.620 align:middle line:84% while your mouth samples and measures, 00:27:22.620 --> 00:27:25.980 align:middle line:90% calls everything tangible? 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:31.260 align:middle line:84% Through darkness, through night, our suffering moves. 00:27:31.260 --> 00:27:35.820 align:middle line:84% A slow quake in the chest, a sigh. 00:27:35.820 --> 00:27:39.840 align:middle line:84% No food, and the body will eat itself. 00:27:39.840 --> 00:27:43.620 align:middle line:84% Some of you bluster and do not believe we 00:27:43.620 --> 00:27:47.730 align:middle line:90% have cut the heart of the sky. 00:27:47.730 --> 00:27:52.290 align:middle line:84% You give gasoline to the lords of your death. 00:27:52.290 --> 00:27:56.055 align:middle line:84% Spoon out the sugar, ignoring its tears." 00:27:56.055 --> 00:28:07.640 align:middle line:90% 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:11.420 align:middle line:84% I guess in looking at that poem, the you in the poem 00:28:11.420 --> 00:28:15.740 align:middle line:84% was, of course, for the people who have that kind of control 00:28:15.740 --> 00:28:20.330 align:middle line:84% and who don't recognize those kinds of connections 00:28:20.330 --> 00:28:26.180 align:middle line:84% that we all have to one another, the relationships that we 00:28:26.180 --> 00:28:27.845 align:middle line:90% have to one another. 00:28:27.845 --> 00:28:32.190 align:middle line:90% 00:28:32.190 --> 00:28:35.010 align:middle line:84% I think I'll read another sort of a shorter poem. 00:28:35.010 --> 00:28:39.720 align:middle line:90% 00:28:39.720 --> 00:28:43.740 align:middle line:84% I lived a lot of my life in a lot of anger 00:28:43.740 --> 00:28:46.120 align:middle line:90% and a lot of despair. 00:28:46.120 --> 00:28:47.760 align:middle line:84% And I realized at a certain point 00:28:47.760 --> 00:28:52.740 align:middle line:84% that I had to let a lot of that go and trust in things. 00:28:52.740 --> 00:28:55.890 align:middle line:84% And there was one moment when that started to happen. 00:28:55.890 --> 00:28:59.490 align:middle line:84% And it was down here in this area in the Southwest. 00:28:59.490 --> 00:29:04.230 align:middle line:84% I was at Santa Fe, and I had this incredible experience 00:29:04.230 --> 00:29:07.860 align:middle line:84% of just sleeping under a full moon. 00:29:07.860 --> 00:29:13.740 align:middle line:84% And all of a sudden, I felt that the moon was watching me, 00:29:13.740 --> 00:29:16.920 align:middle line:84% that the moon and I were somehow talking. 00:29:16.920 --> 00:29:19.620 align:middle line:84% And I really couldn't quite understand it. 00:29:19.620 --> 00:29:24.630 align:middle line:84% And maybe it was a moment of insanity, which I treasure. 00:29:24.630 --> 00:29:25.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:29:25.130 --> 00:29:27.690 align:middle line:84% I think we need moments of insanity 00:29:27.690 --> 00:29:29.910 align:middle line:84% like that that we'd really treasure. 00:29:29.910 --> 00:29:33.570 align:middle line:84% Maybe that's the kind of reality that we need to come back to. 00:29:33.570 --> 00:29:36.210 align:middle line:84% But that kind of moment gave me a lot 00:29:36.210 --> 00:29:42.130 align:middle line:84% of connection to feeling free of despair for a very long time. 00:29:42.130 --> 00:29:48.060 align:middle line:84% I don't think I felt the kind of despair I once felt since then. 00:29:48.060 --> 00:29:50.580 align:middle line:84% And when I got back home, I thought of it. 00:29:50.580 --> 00:29:53.320 align:middle line:84% And I thought I should remember this experience. 00:29:53.320 --> 00:29:55.140 align:middle line:90% And so I wrote a poem. 00:29:55.140 --> 00:29:58.950 align:middle line:84% And this is for all of you who might feel that kind of sense 00:29:58.950 --> 00:30:02.640 align:middle line:84% of despair and hope that you can let it go and find 00:30:02.640 --> 00:30:08.100 align:middle line:84% some connections out there in the world in the Earth and sky. 00:30:08.100 --> 00:30:11.280 align:middle line:90% It's called "No Longer." 00:30:11.280 --> 00:30:16.590 align:middle line:84% "I no longer fear the firestorm, despair. 00:30:16.590 --> 00:30:21.600 align:middle line:84% Green Earth has coaxed my soul over a blue bridge 00:30:21.600 --> 00:30:28.830 align:middle line:84% of forget-me-nots into her hollow of oak leaves, lilies. 00:30:28.830 --> 00:30:35.910 align:middle line:84% Now each creek I cross balances dark and day, as birds 00:30:35.910 --> 00:30:42.900 align:middle line:84% give no thought to each wing's weight, but fly, singing. 00:30:42.900 --> 00:30:47.550 align:middle line:84% I no longer expect the firestorm, despair, 00:30:47.550 --> 00:30:51.270 align:middle line:90% to sear the ground I grow on. 00:30:51.270 --> 00:30:56.250 align:middle line:84% Horns of sumac have broken my blindness. 00:30:56.250 --> 00:31:00.660 align:middle line:84% Thunder's taste glitters on my lips. 00:31:00.660 --> 00:31:05.760 align:middle line:84% The moon urges, my blood roots burgeoning. 00:31:05.760 --> 00:31:11.460 align:middle line:84% Her fierce song cools this light I feed on. 00:31:11.460 --> 00:31:15.940 align:middle line:84% Together, we travel this river of fervid stars." 00:31:15.940 --> 00:31:28.390 align:middle line:90% 00:31:28.390 --> 00:31:33.160 align:middle line:84% I think what I'll do is to read another poem 00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:39.580 align:middle line:90% about my experiences traveling. 00:31:39.580 --> 00:31:43.990 align:middle line:84% I had the opportunity to go to China a few years ago in '89, 00:31:43.990 --> 00:31:48.640 align:middle line:84% just the year before Tiananmen Square happened. 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:51.760 align:middle line:84% And I felt there was a real strong connection 00:31:51.760 --> 00:31:56.620 align:middle line:84% to the kinds of writers that I'd met in China 00:31:56.620 --> 00:32:01.750 align:middle line:84% and to just the experience of being 00:32:01.750 --> 00:32:03.970 align:middle line:90% an Indian person in China. 00:32:03.970 --> 00:32:10.030 align:middle line:84% I felt a connection to a number of the writers there. 00:32:10.030 --> 00:32:13.420 align:middle line:84% Some of them were Chinese, and some of them were Tibetan. 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:19.870 align:middle line:84% And we went over to Chengdu and traveled all through China. 00:32:19.870 --> 00:32:22.240 align:middle line:84% The conference was in Chengdu, which 00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:23.830 align:middle line:84% is in a marvelous area where there 00:32:23.830 --> 00:32:26.980 align:middle line:84% are very tall mountains, very pointed kinds of mountains, 00:32:26.980 --> 00:32:29.860 align:middle line:90% very green mountains. 00:32:29.860 --> 00:32:32.320 align:middle line:84% And it was a beautiful experience. 00:32:32.320 --> 00:32:36.460 align:middle line:84% And I still have a feeling of connectedness 00:32:36.460 --> 00:32:41.830 align:middle line:84% sometimes when I think of those people and wonder how they are. 00:32:41.830 --> 00:32:45.820 align:middle line:84% I think we get images in the air and from the Earth that 00:32:45.820 --> 00:32:47.030 align:middle line:90% come to us. 00:32:47.030 --> 00:32:49.810 align:middle line:84% And I think that's our way of really communicating 00:32:49.810 --> 00:32:51.290 align:middle line:90% with one another. 00:32:51.290 --> 00:32:55.900 align:middle line:84% But we're taught not to pay attention to those things. 00:32:55.900 --> 00:32:58.630 align:middle line:84% We're spacing out or daydreaming or whatever. 00:32:58.630 --> 00:33:01.070 align:middle line:84% But I like to pay attention to that. 00:33:01.070 --> 00:33:03.070 align:middle line:84% So this is a poem for those writers 00:33:03.070 --> 00:33:05.260 align:middle line:90% that I had met over there. 00:33:05.260 --> 00:33:09.070 align:middle line:90% And it's called "Traveling." 00:33:09.070 --> 00:33:12.160 align:middle line:84% If you're not familiar with some of the Chinese writers, 00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:14.320 align:middle line:84% there's one that I mentioned, a poet 00:33:14.320 --> 00:33:19.870 align:middle line:84% named Du Fu, who lived in what is called the City of Brocade. 00:33:19.870 --> 00:33:23.330 align:middle line:84% And he was a very well-known poet. 00:33:23.330 --> 00:33:25.330 align:middle line:84% His whole family comes from a series 00:33:25.330 --> 00:33:28.180 align:middle line:84% of very well-known, famous poets. 00:33:28.180 --> 00:33:32.050 align:middle line:84% But he met ill favor with the court and, of course, 00:33:32.050 --> 00:33:35.860 align:middle line:84% was sent out exile and traveled for a very long time 00:33:35.860 --> 00:33:39.220 align:middle line:84% throughout China and wrote a lot of his poems 00:33:39.220 --> 00:33:40.750 align:middle line:90% while he was traveling. 00:33:40.750 --> 00:33:44.950 align:middle line:90% The poem is called "Traveling." 00:33:44.950 --> 00:33:49.870 align:middle line:84% "The moon on the rim of my world skims westward 00:33:49.870 --> 00:33:53.320 align:middle line:90% over ripples of cirrus haze. 00:33:53.320 --> 00:33:57.940 align:middle line:84% It is the orange sail of a junk I follow, 00:33:57.940 --> 00:34:02.170 align:middle line:90% traveling in indigo twilight. 00:34:02.170 --> 00:34:07.420 align:middle line:84% Do you know in order to sleep, I read Tibetan poetry, 00:34:07.420 --> 00:34:10.000 align:middle line:90% Chinese history. 00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.560 align:middle line:84% The xun wavers in unfamiliar air. 00:34:14.560 --> 00:34:17.590 align:middle line:84% Quicksilver above the gearing down 00:34:17.590 --> 00:34:22.000 align:middle line:84% of trucks leaving the nearby freeway. 00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:26.590 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, when I lift the lid of my cup, 00:34:26.590 --> 00:34:31.420 align:middle line:84% tea leaves catch my heart in hidden currents. 00:34:31.420 --> 00:34:35.440 align:middle line:84% And I remember orchid petals, trembling 00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:41.650 align:middle line:84% in the teahouse of Du Fu in his City of Brocade. 00:34:41.650 --> 00:34:46.630 align:middle line:84% He knew what strengths arrive with exile. 00:34:46.630 --> 00:34:52.280 align:middle line:84% Sometimes those lagoons inundate my daily life. 00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:56.860 align:middle line:84% And I wait, while ripples of jade surge 00:34:56.860 --> 00:34:59.560 align:middle line:90% against my shoulders. 00:34:59.560 --> 00:35:03.250 align:middle line:84% I wait while the mountains of Leshan 00:35:03.250 --> 00:35:09.580 align:middle line:84% unravel roads around the horizon of my afternoon. 00:35:09.580 --> 00:35:16.270 align:middle line:84% We travel with common heartbeats now, though half a world away. 00:35:16.270 --> 00:35:21.250 align:middle line:84% You, too, write toward dawn alone. 00:35:21.250 --> 00:35:24.700 align:middle line:84% Does someone watch you from beyond 00:35:24.700 --> 00:35:28.390 align:middle line:90% for that single indiscretion? 00:35:28.390 --> 00:35:32.860 align:middle line:84% Tiptoeing across tightropes of ideology, 00:35:32.860 --> 00:35:38.590 align:middle line:84% carrying only the asylum of my words, I want to reach you. 00:35:38.590 --> 00:35:43.330 align:middle line:84% But I cannot make them minarets or gorges, 00:35:43.330 --> 00:35:47.920 align:middle line:84% breath crystals drifting in an azure sky, 00:35:47.920 --> 00:35:53.980 align:middle line:84% the way your native tongue looks to me on paper. 00:35:53.980 --> 00:35:58.300 align:middle line:84% You said a gold thread binds all things together. 00:35:58.300 --> 00:36:00.970 align:middle line:90% Can I find it here? 00:36:00.970 --> 00:36:07.300 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I long for sweet sour carp and garlic shoots. 00:36:07.300 --> 00:36:10.270 align:middle line:84% Do you ever scour the underground 00:36:10.270 --> 00:36:16.300 align:middle line:84% for books on Indian nations beyond your Eastern Sea? 00:36:16.300 --> 00:36:20.650 align:middle line:84% True to the drum and bell sound of my soul, 00:36:20.650 --> 00:36:25.270 align:middle line:84% I dance these pictures into wind and send them 00:36:25.270 --> 00:36:28.250 align:middle line:90% on the backs of ocean waves. 00:36:28.250 --> 00:36:33.020 align:middle line:84% Because I wanted you to know, every now and then, 00:36:33.020 --> 00:36:40.550 align:middle line:84% I cannot sleep until I touch my fingers to the Earth to feel 00:36:40.550 --> 00:36:44.075 align:middle line:84% if you're still rising on the other side." 00:36:44.075 --> 00:36:47.660 align:middle line:90% 00:36:47.660 --> 00:36:49.610 align:middle line:84% For those of you who might not know that, 00:36:49.610 --> 00:36:53.120 align:middle line:84% it's very risky to be an artist in China. 00:36:53.120 --> 00:36:55.550 align:middle line:84% Because the country swings so radically 00:36:55.550 --> 00:36:59.510 align:middle line:84% between being open to Western influence and being shut. 00:36:59.510 --> 00:37:02.480 align:middle line:84% And one of the writers before we left 00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:04.820 align:middle line:84% recognized that they were at the point 00:37:04.820 --> 00:37:07.700 align:middle line:84% when it would shut down and try to get rid 00:37:07.700 --> 00:37:10.130 align:middle line:90% of Western influences. 00:37:10.130 --> 00:37:14.030 align:middle line:84% And he was a very brave man who had spent probably 00:37:14.030 --> 00:37:17.120 align:middle line:84% about 29 years in prison for his writing. 00:37:17.120 --> 00:37:19.760 align:middle line:84% And again, then, at this time he had come out 00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:23.390 align:middle line:84% to write and to be recognized as a writer. 00:37:23.390 --> 00:37:25.160 align:middle line:84% And the writers who write and are 00:37:25.160 --> 00:37:29.270 align:middle line:84% interested in Western literature and English and the kinds 00:37:29.270 --> 00:37:32.570 align:middle line:84% of things that we were discussing 00:37:32.570 --> 00:37:36.410 align:middle line:84% could have also been considered decadent again and sent back 00:37:36.410 --> 00:37:37.340 align:middle line:90% to prison. 00:37:37.340 --> 00:37:42.620 align:middle line:84% So I admired their willingness to continue 00:37:42.620 --> 00:37:48.920 align:middle line:84% with their art in spite of such tremendous, potentially 00:37:48.920 --> 00:37:51.400 align:middle line:90% frightening kinds of obstacles. 00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:55.900 align:middle line:90% 00:37:55.900 --> 00:37:59.320 align:middle line:84% Well, I don't know if you're familiar, perhaps, 00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:01.150 align:middle line:90% with large bodies of water. 00:38:01.150 --> 00:38:02.320 align:middle line:90% Are there lakes here? 00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:04.630 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:38:04.630 --> 00:38:05.800 align:middle line:90% Do you have lakes? 00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:08.500 align:middle line:90% No? 00:38:08.500 --> 00:38:10.480 align:middle line:84% Well, of course, I live near the Great Lakes, 00:38:10.480 --> 00:38:13.180 align:middle line:84% or that's where my people are from is near the Great Lakes. 00:38:13.180 --> 00:38:16.150 align:middle line:84% And we have very large bodies of water. 00:38:16.150 --> 00:38:18.490 align:middle line:84% And I thought that I ought to send you 00:38:18.490 --> 00:38:22.480 align:middle line:84% some images of the great bodies of water and the trees 00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:25.450 align:middle line:90% and the birds and the storms. 00:38:25.450 --> 00:38:29.470 align:middle line:84% I understand you do have tremendously heavy storms 00:38:29.470 --> 00:38:30.800 align:middle line:90% in the summer. 00:38:30.800 --> 00:38:37.450 align:middle line:84% So this is about two very large fronts meeting one another 00:38:37.450 --> 00:38:38.890 align:middle line:90% over the water. 00:38:38.890 --> 00:38:42.940 align:middle line:84% And it was kind of an incredible experience to watch them 00:38:42.940 --> 00:38:48.400 align:middle line:84% and to feel that they were rumbling and talking 00:38:48.400 --> 00:38:49.270 align:middle line:90% to one another. 00:38:49.270 --> 00:38:51.820 align:middle line:84% And you could see them kind of going along. 00:38:51.820 --> 00:38:54.533 align:middle line:84% And then here we were on kind of the Earth. 00:38:54.533 --> 00:38:56.200 align:middle line:84% And then, of course, you knew that there 00:38:56.200 --> 00:38:59.170 align:middle line:84% were other things going on underneath the water, 00:38:59.170 --> 00:39:01.960 align:middle line:90% underneath the land. 00:39:01.960 --> 00:39:05.200 align:middle line:84% So this is about a place called Chequamegon Bay. 00:39:05.200 --> 00:39:08.808 align:middle line:84% If you're ever up near northern Wisconsin, 00:39:08.808 --> 00:39:10.600 align:middle line:84% you might want to go up there, because it's 00:39:10.600 --> 00:39:12.790 align:middle line:90% a very beautiful place. 00:39:12.790 --> 00:39:16.340 align:middle line:84% And the poem is called "Of Light, Water, and Gathered 00:39:16.340 --> 00:39:16.840 align:middle line:90% Dust." 00:39:16.840 --> 00:39:19.450 align:middle line:90% 00:39:19.450 --> 00:39:25.480 align:middle line:84% "Above Chequamegon Bay, two immense assemblies 00:39:25.480 --> 00:39:30.130 align:middle line:84% of summer clouds collide, flare with messages, 00:39:30.130 --> 00:39:33.040 align:middle line:90% and rumble their rejection. 00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:38.800 align:middle line:84% With massive strides, they edge each other, bunch-backed 00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:40.780 align:middle line:90% by a load-- cauliflower. 00:39:40.780 --> 00:39:45.250 align:middle line:84% The eastern front drives daggers of rain 00:39:45.250 --> 00:39:49.840 align:middle line:84% into the dove gray water between them. 00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:54.220 align:middle line:84% The western fliers snap green whips, 00:39:54.220 --> 00:39:57.820 align:middle line:90% forcing cruise ships home. 00:39:57.820 --> 00:40:00.940 align:middle line:84% When the lightning flashes, you name 00:40:00.940 --> 00:40:04.540 align:middle line:90% a shore hovering in midair. 00:40:04.540 --> 00:40:10.720 align:middle line:84% Other islands out there are shrewd as submerging monsters, 00:40:10.720 --> 00:40:14.770 align:middle line:90% eyes flickering in the dusk. 00:40:14.770 --> 00:40:20.930 align:middle line:84% The gulls' transparent cries are blown along a low cliff. 00:40:20.930 --> 00:40:23.530 align:middle line:90% Wings arrive from wind. 00:40:23.530 --> 00:40:26.920 align:middle line:84% They read it, then balance again, 00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:31.150 align:middle line:84% swinging like pendants beyond us. 00:40:31.150 --> 00:40:36.040 align:middle line:84% Crickets resist the wind and sing. 00:40:36.040 --> 00:40:40.750 align:middle line:84% Orange and red lightning explodes in dizzy loops. 00:40:40.750 --> 00:40:45.070 align:middle line:84% Two flashes zig from top down cloud. 00:40:45.070 --> 00:40:52.690 align:middle line:84% The bay surges over rocks, its fish, aware of an upper world. 00:40:52.690 --> 00:40:55.450 align:middle line:90% Look, I say, in that flash. 00:40:55.450 --> 00:40:59.470 align:middle line:84% The oak grove we walked through last spring. 00:40:59.470 --> 00:41:03.970 align:middle line:84% Crickets approve, sing louder than before. 00:41:03.970 --> 00:41:08.170 align:middle line:84% As shreds of cauliflower fall earthward, 00:41:08.170 --> 00:41:12.850 align:middle line:84% house lights on Madeleine Island dim. 00:41:12.850 --> 00:41:16.630 align:middle line:84% Above the scattering clouds, Jupiter 00:41:16.630 --> 00:41:21.430 align:middle line:84% close as the motel door, and the Milky Way, 00:41:21.430 --> 00:41:27.970 align:middle line:84% no longer remote, but bright as your laughter in the dark. 00:41:27.970 --> 00:41:33.040 align:middle line:84% The footprints of souls who walked this Earth plane 00:41:33.040 --> 00:41:40.210 align:middle line:84% whirl around us, through us, beyond us, into us. 00:41:40.210 --> 00:41:44.620 align:middle line:84% Born of light, water, and gathered dust, 00:41:44.620 --> 00:41:50.170 align:middle line:84% we grope for one another's hand and trust the galaxy's 00:41:50.170 --> 00:41:58.600 align:middle line:84% embrace as leaves trust air, as thunder its cloud. 00:41:58.600 --> 00:42:02.290 align:middle line:84% You throw your cigarette over the rail. 00:42:02.290 --> 00:42:09.160 align:middle line:84% It grows a tail and travels through a slow glowing arc. 00:42:09.160 --> 00:42:12.655 align:middle line:84% For that moment, even crickets pause." 00:42:12.655 --> 00:42:16.750 align:middle line:90% 00:42:16.750 --> 00:42:22.450 align:middle line:84% Well, I'm going to read another political poem. 00:42:22.450 --> 00:42:25.720 align:middle line:90% 00:42:25.720 --> 00:42:27.910 align:middle line:84% I don't know if you're familiar with the things that 00:42:27.910 --> 00:42:30.700 align:middle line:84% are going on in northern Wisconsin, 00:42:30.700 --> 00:42:34.450 align:middle line:84% the issue of Indian treaty rights 00:42:34.450 --> 00:42:39.130 align:middle line:84% and the question of the development of mines. 00:42:39.130 --> 00:42:43.930 align:middle line:84% There is a large copper deposit in northern Wisconsin. 00:42:43.930 --> 00:42:49.690 align:middle line:84% And for a while, what stopped Anaconda Mining out 00:42:49.690 --> 00:42:52.960 align:middle line:84% of Australia, a multinational mining corporation, 00:42:52.960 --> 00:42:56.830 align:middle line:84% was nine people on the Mole Lake Reservation 00:42:56.830 --> 00:42:59.440 align:middle line:84% up in northern Wisconsin who claimed 00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:02.680 align:middle line:84% that any kind of mining development 00:43:02.680 --> 00:43:06.280 align:middle line:84% needed to recognize that the Indian people 00:43:06.280 --> 00:43:09.520 align:middle line:84% in northern Wisconsin had reserve rights. 00:43:09.520 --> 00:43:12.610 align:middle line:84% And there have been tremendous encounters 00:43:12.610 --> 00:43:17.470 align:middle line:84% over the last several years between the Indian spear 00:43:17.470 --> 00:43:20.170 align:middle line:84% fishermen who have gone out and exercised 00:43:20.170 --> 00:43:27.880 align:middle line:84% those rights to spear on the lakes and organizations that 00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:30.520 align:middle line:90% claim to-- 00:43:30.520 --> 00:43:32.410 align:middle line:84% they claim that they need to have 00:43:32.410 --> 00:43:34.240 align:middle line:90% equal rights for all Americans. 00:43:34.240 --> 00:43:36.940 align:middle line:84% But their major interest is, of course, 00:43:36.940 --> 00:43:42.130 align:middle line:84% to support the mining interests and to prevent Indians 00:43:42.130 --> 00:43:46.840 align:middle line:84% from spear fishing, from exercising their rights. 00:43:46.840 --> 00:43:50.530 align:middle line:84% So the spear fishing controversy is not necessarily 00:43:50.530 --> 00:43:51.790 align:middle line:90% one about fish. 00:43:51.790 --> 00:43:55.780 align:middle line:84% It's really about the rights of Indian people, 00:43:55.780 --> 00:43:59.980 align:middle line:84% the questions that they have over the environmental safety, 00:43:59.980 --> 00:44:03.040 align:middle line:84% how it will affect them and the water, 00:44:03.040 --> 00:44:07.120 align:middle line:84% and the development, the process of development 00:44:07.120 --> 00:44:09.670 align:middle line:84% that could go on and really rip up 00:44:09.670 --> 00:44:13.090 align:middle line:84% the northern woods in Wisconsin all across the northern area. 00:44:13.090 --> 00:44:15.940 align:middle line:90% 00:44:15.940 --> 00:44:19.090 align:middle line:84% And when I had thought of these things 00:44:19.090 --> 00:44:20.980 align:middle line:90% and was taking a course-- 00:44:20.980 --> 00:44:24.250 align:middle line:84% I took a course with a professor from Chile 00:44:24.250 --> 00:44:26.500 align:middle line:90% whose name is Hernan Vidal. 00:44:26.500 --> 00:44:29.260 align:middle line:84% And he showed me a number of things 00:44:29.260 --> 00:44:32.380 align:middle line:84% to think about in terms of the connections 00:44:32.380 --> 00:44:35.740 align:middle line:84% between northern Wisconsin and the kinds of mining that 00:44:35.740 --> 00:44:37.840 align:middle line:90% had gone on in Chile. 00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:41.380 align:middle line:84% And so this poem was written for him. 00:44:41.380 --> 00:44:45.280 align:middle line:84% And it kind of moves around, I guess. 00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:46.990 align:middle line:84% But one of the things that started 00:44:46.990 --> 00:44:49.720 align:middle line:84% me thinking about it is that in one 00:44:49.720 --> 00:44:53.890 align:middle line:84% of the places in northern Wisconsin in a pizza parlor 00:44:53.890 --> 00:45:00.190 align:middle line:84% there was a sign posted for the first annual Indian shoot, 00:45:00.190 --> 00:45:04.120 align:middle line:84% to think of how a person could kill off an Indian lawyer 00:45:04.120 --> 00:45:08.410 align:middle line:84% and get 100 points, shoot an Indian teacher 00:45:08.410 --> 00:45:10.870 align:middle line:84% and get another couple of hundred points. 00:45:10.870 --> 00:45:15.460 align:middle line:84% And so there was a whole listing of this kind of racism 00:45:15.460 --> 00:45:17.110 align:middle line:84% that was posted throughout the area. 00:45:17.110 --> 00:45:25.090 align:middle line:84% And that's one example of how sad that area had become. 00:45:25.090 --> 00:45:27.460 align:middle line:84% Fortunately, there is a restraining order 00:45:27.460 --> 00:45:31.180 align:middle line:84% that just came down last fall, so that the people who 00:45:31.180 --> 00:45:34.330 align:middle line:84% are in those organizations are no longer allowed 00:45:34.330 --> 00:45:40.930 align:middle line:84% to interfere with Indian spear fishermen and women out 00:45:40.930 --> 00:45:41.860 align:middle line:90% on the lakes. 00:45:41.860 --> 00:45:44.500 align:middle line:84% So it will start when I get back. 00:45:44.500 --> 00:45:46.120 align:middle line:84% In March, they'll go out on the lakes, 00:45:46.120 --> 00:45:47.350 align:middle line:90% start going on the lakes. 00:45:47.350 --> 00:45:51.760 align:middle line:84% And hopefully, the restraining order will hold. 00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:56.530 align:middle line:84% This poem is called "Preguntas," which means questions. 00:45:56.530 --> 00:45:59.040 align:middle line:90% 00:45:59.040 --> 00:46:03.690 align:middle line:84% "You said one time, offhandedly, your bones 00:46:03.690 --> 00:46:06.960 align:middle line:90% contain your people's history. 00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:11.190 align:middle line:90% Professor, no one wrote it down. 00:46:11.190 --> 00:46:14.466 align:middle line:90% Did you know in my home state-- 00:46:14.466 --> 00:46:20.640 align:middle line:84% [AUDIO OUT] --the bones in my fingers 00:46:20.640 --> 00:46:24.750 align:middle line:84% and scruffed them across the sign. 00:46:24.750 --> 00:46:29.430 align:middle line:84% It is not the first, the right finger bone sang. 00:46:29.430 --> 00:46:35.100 align:middle line:84% It has never been annual, the left ones added. 00:46:35.100 --> 00:46:38.790 align:middle line:84% Do I look like a deer to you, professor, 00:46:38.790 --> 00:46:43.080 align:middle line:84% or a quail preening in the back corner of the room 00:46:43.080 --> 00:46:46.560 align:middle line:90% against the wall and window? 00:46:46.560 --> 00:46:51.990 align:middle line:84% I warble to the air of the classroom, OK, OK. 00:46:51.990 --> 00:46:56.310 align:middle line:84% So I'll be a bird, la guarda barranca, 00:46:56.310 --> 00:47:00.570 align:middle line:84% who lives in these ravines on the underside 00:47:00.570 --> 00:47:03.120 align:middle line:90% of American history. 00:47:03.120 --> 00:47:07.530 align:middle line:84% From these thickets in the shadow of his years, 00:47:07.530 --> 00:47:13.770 align:middle line:84% my father sits at our table near the window telling stories. 00:47:13.770 --> 00:47:17.310 align:middle line:84% The west wind knew how to listen, 00:47:17.310 --> 00:47:21.840 align:middle line:84% and sometimes sends his voice back to me 00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:25.850 align:middle line:90% whenever my blood falters. 00:47:25.850 --> 00:47:30.080 align:middle line:84% I welcomed his singing in the dark, his sobbing 00:47:30.080 --> 00:47:34.700 align:middle line:84% in the dark, paralyzed at times in his struggle 00:47:34.700 --> 00:47:41.150 align:middle line:84% against the daily snare of being declared worthless. 00:47:41.150 --> 00:47:46.940 align:middle line:84% Because of him, I know my flesh is corn come from Earth. 00:47:46.940 --> 00:47:51.470 align:middle line:84% Because of him, I know my body is a hologram 00:47:51.470 --> 00:47:55.430 align:middle line:90% of all that is and ever was. 00:47:55.430 --> 00:47:59.240 align:middle line:84% What fear drives them, professor? 00:47:59.240 --> 00:48:03.320 align:middle line:84% What makes them want to annihilate these memories 00:48:03.320 --> 00:48:06.140 align:middle line:90% of our bones and blood? 00:48:06.140 --> 00:48:09.980 align:middle line:90% Bones breaking silence, speak. 00:48:09.980 --> 00:48:13.850 align:middle line:90% Words finding wings, fly. 00:48:13.850 --> 00:48:17.690 align:middle line:90% Wings bringing clouds, whirl. 00:48:17.690 --> 00:48:22.550 align:middle line:84% Clouds bearing rain, fall on those fields 00:48:22.550 --> 00:48:25.340 align:middle line:90% that uphold justice. 00:48:25.340 --> 00:48:29.270 align:middle line:84% They want hurt and rage to cement our bones, 00:48:29.270 --> 00:48:31.970 align:middle line:90% so we can't dance by them. 00:48:31.970 --> 00:48:35.300 align:middle line:84% They want us drunk and armed whenever we 00:48:35.300 --> 00:48:38.750 align:middle line:90% ride across northern Wisconsin. 00:48:38.750 --> 00:48:44.720 align:middle line:84% Then they'll call us terrorists, savages, call newsmen 00:48:44.720 --> 00:48:50.060 align:middle line:84% into see our hides tacked to garage doors, 00:48:50.060 --> 00:48:55.370 align:middle line:84% because we question the word civilized openly 00:48:55.370 --> 00:49:02.030 align:middle line:84% against this treeless horizon, because we declare ourselves 00:49:02.030 --> 00:49:05.960 align:middle line:90% original human beings. 00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:09.950 align:middle line:84% Professor, sometimes across your face 00:49:09.950 --> 00:49:14.060 align:middle line:84% floats a cloud of loneliness and loss, 00:49:14.060 --> 00:49:17.810 align:middle line:84% of solidarity with those who suffer. 00:49:17.810 --> 00:49:20.750 align:middle line:84% You draw a schema on the blackboard 00:49:20.750 --> 00:49:27.200 align:middle line:84% to reveal the wheel of fragments in which we live. 00:49:27.200 --> 00:49:30.980 align:middle line:84% Although you clearly show us contradictions 00:49:30.980 --> 00:49:35.600 align:middle line:84% like gears grinding every one of us into sand, 00:49:35.600 --> 00:49:39.080 align:middle line:84% the schema have not taught me as much 00:49:39.080 --> 00:49:46.610 align:middle line:84% as the sundown cloud across your face when you speak of justice. 00:49:46.610 --> 00:49:51.500 align:middle line:84% You have helped me understand their fear of the dark 00:49:51.500 --> 00:49:54.140 align:middle line:90% is not my identity. 00:49:54.140 --> 00:49:58.580 align:middle line:84% Their Indian shoot doesn't create wiggle room 00:49:58.580 --> 00:50:00.770 align:middle line:90% for a few more fish. 00:50:00.770 --> 00:50:05.150 align:middle line:84% It's not about fish, but fake blue lakes. 00:50:05.150 --> 00:50:09.050 align:middle line:90% Not about trees, but copper. 00:50:09.050 --> 00:50:12.470 align:middle line:84% Sometimes the wind brings to my window 00:50:12.470 --> 00:50:17.060 align:middle line:84% my father's voice with the voices of others. 00:50:17.060 --> 00:50:24.410 align:middle line:84% Akwesasne, Tlaltelolco, Lac du Flambeau, El Salvador. 00:50:24.410 --> 00:50:30.260 align:middle line:84% Because of you, I trust bones breaking silence will speak. 00:50:30.260 --> 00:50:34.010 align:middle line:90% Words finding wings will fly. 00:50:34.010 --> 00:50:37.040 align:middle line:84% Wings bringing clouds will whirl. 00:50:37.040 --> 00:50:41.450 align:middle line:84% And whirling clouds filled with oblique rain 00:50:41.450 --> 00:50:45.200 align:middle line:84% will fall on those fields that answer 00:50:45.200 --> 00:50:47.100 align:middle line:90% these questions of justice." 00:50:47.100 --> 00:50:50.180 align:middle line:90% 00:50:50.180 --> 00:50:51.620 align:middle line:90% So-- thank you. 00:50:51.620 --> 00:50:59.010 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:50:59.010 --> 00:51:02.460 align:middle line:84% So you can feel real happy about the rain, you know. 00:51:02.460 --> 00:51:05.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:51:05.340 --> 00:51:06.960 align:middle line:90% I'll read just a few more poems. 00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:10.120 align:middle line:90% 00:51:10.120 --> 00:51:10.900 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 00:51:10.900 --> 00:51:28.380 align:middle line:90% 00:51:28.380 --> 00:51:30.000 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:32.070 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read another poem once again. 00:51:32.070 --> 00:51:36.370 align:middle line:84% There's two more that I'd like to share with you. 00:51:36.370 --> 00:51:38.340 align:middle line:84% One of them is a fairly recent poem. 00:51:38.340 --> 00:51:41.820 align:middle line:84% And it's about just growing up in a city 00:51:41.820 --> 00:51:47.880 align:middle line:84% and trying to figure out about what it meant to-- 00:51:47.880 --> 00:51:51.300 align:middle line:84% what do they call that sort of consciousness 00:51:51.300 --> 00:51:55.740 align:middle line:84% where your mind is colonized, where 00:51:55.740 --> 00:51:59.970 align:middle line:84% you feel like you're one person in one situation. 00:51:59.970 --> 00:52:04.800 align:middle line:84% And then in another way, you have to be someone else. 00:52:04.800 --> 00:52:08.550 align:middle line:84% How in some ways, many of us have had to live in the city 00:52:08.550 --> 00:52:13.300 align:middle line:84% and not really reveal, in some ways, who we were. 00:52:13.300 --> 00:52:16.740 align:middle line:84% And so the poem is called "Our Different Story." 00:52:16.740 --> 00:52:22.010 align:middle line:90% 00:52:22.010 --> 00:52:27.590 align:middle line:84% "After my father returned from the war, he gave each of us 00:52:27.590 --> 00:52:34.820 align:middle line:84% a mask to wear, like the one his mother gave him made of gauze. 00:52:34.820 --> 00:52:37.400 align:middle line:84% Wear this, he said, so they won't 00:52:37.400 --> 00:52:41.630 align:middle line:84% see that you belong to a different story. 00:52:41.630 --> 00:52:47.720 align:middle line:84% When you enter their world, what they do won't hurt so much. 00:52:47.720 --> 00:52:53.210 align:middle line:84% We wore the flimsy gauze that smelled like a dusty curtain. 00:52:53.210 --> 00:52:57.620 align:middle line:84% It tickled our ears, ruffled over our arms, 00:52:57.620 --> 00:53:03.200 align:middle line:84% and draped down our backs like a bride's long veil. 00:53:03.200 --> 00:53:07.470 align:middle line:84% It's moiré patterns dazzled our sleep. 00:53:07.470 --> 00:53:11.030 align:middle line:84% But we still lifted it from our faces 00:53:11.030 --> 00:53:15.800 align:middle line:84% to dance inside our different story. 00:53:15.800 --> 00:53:20.730 align:middle line:84% When we got hurt or grew afraid, we chided each other. 00:53:20.730 --> 00:53:23.470 align:middle line:90% You don't wear it right. 00:53:23.470 --> 00:53:27.130 align:middle line:84% We never thought its whisper could run around 00:53:27.130 --> 00:53:30.100 align:middle line:90% our heads for years. 00:53:30.100 --> 00:53:35.080 align:middle line:84% Do you hear it muttering now, my sisters? 00:53:35.080 --> 00:53:40.210 align:middle line:84% We hugged each other when it grew too tight against our eyes 00:53:40.210 --> 00:53:42.550 align:middle line:90% like a sour bandage. 00:53:42.550 --> 00:53:48.940 align:middle line:84% We squinted past its mottled light at dark green fields 00:53:48.940 --> 00:53:52.830 align:middle line:90% beyond its threshold. 00:53:52.830 --> 00:53:56.520 align:middle line:84% Boyfriends who refuse to wear it had 00:53:56.520 --> 00:54:00.420 align:middle line:84% it stapled on their faces in places 00:54:00.420 --> 00:54:04.300 align:middle line:84% called prison or boarding school. 00:54:04.300 --> 00:54:09.810 align:middle line:84% Inez told father the gauze was cutting us whenever we tried 00:54:09.810 --> 00:54:12.870 align:middle line:90% to rip it from our foreheads. 00:54:12.870 --> 00:54:19.860 align:middle line:84% But father's mask by then became the cast of light in winter. 00:54:19.860 --> 00:54:24.930 align:middle line:84% He couldn't remember the day his mother gave him his. 00:54:24.930 --> 00:54:28.770 align:middle line:84% He felt our pain, but could not stop 00:54:28.770 --> 00:54:33.120 align:middle line:90% what had become its steady hum. 00:54:33.120 --> 00:54:38.640 align:middle line:84% Do you hear it now, my sisters, that television 00:54:38.640 --> 00:54:41.490 align:middle line:90% in a far-off room? 00:54:41.490 --> 00:54:45.360 align:middle line:84% I find it fluttering over me at times, 00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:50.040 align:middle line:84% like those nights my sister threw a sheet high 00:54:50.040 --> 00:54:52.740 align:middle line:90% as the stucco ceiling. 00:54:52.740 --> 00:54:57.960 align:middle line:84% It's cool nap skipped down my face, my thighs. 00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:01.860 align:middle line:84% If I could lie still long enough, 00:55:01.860 --> 00:55:05.220 align:middle line:90% I'd hear the sound of dying. 00:55:05.220 --> 00:55:08.550 align:middle line:84% When I walked highways in despair, 00:55:08.550 --> 00:55:13.980 align:middle line:84% I heard the leaves applauding where its edges frayed 00:55:13.980 --> 00:55:18.850 align:middle line:90% and my face was undisguised. 00:55:18.850 --> 00:55:23.140 align:middle line:84% My children find gauze everywhere they go. 00:55:23.140 --> 00:55:28.640 align:middle line:84% One in their games had mica woven in the warp. 00:55:28.640 --> 00:55:33.640 align:middle line:84% It's transparent lace can constrain the heart. 00:55:33.640 --> 00:55:36.940 align:middle line:84% They say, it's just a sparkler they 00:55:36.940 --> 00:55:40.570 align:middle line:90% can light and watch be spent. 00:55:40.570 --> 00:55:45.790 align:middle line:84% I cannot stop its pattern from traveling up their arms. 00:55:45.790 --> 00:55:49.000 align:middle line:84% I tell you, sisters, I'm afraid they 00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:54.880 align:middle line:84% will grow used to the same cuts, more fond of their own wounds 00:55:54.880 --> 00:55:58.000 align:middle line:90% than lust or love. 00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:00.850 align:middle line:90% Father cannot help us now. 00:56:00.850 --> 00:56:06.610 align:middle line:84% In our time, we have to struggle from these wrappings, cocoons 00:56:06.610 --> 00:56:12.310 align:middle line:84% in need of cracking, tougher on breasts than corsets, 00:56:12.310 --> 00:56:15.910 align:middle line:84% hotter at times than a cast, filled 00:56:15.910 --> 00:56:20.200 align:middle line:84% with a multitude of insufferable itches. 00:56:20.200 --> 00:56:25.090 align:middle line:84% I danced around the dumpster until mine ripped, 00:56:25.090 --> 00:56:30.460 align:middle line:84% and the story bloomed above me in the dark. 00:56:30.460 --> 00:56:34.840 align:middle line:84% Only then could I recognize the moon. 00:56:34.840 --> 00:56:40.480 align:middle line:84% I plan to pry apart the glint inside each wave 00:56:40.480 --> 00:56:45.940 align:middle line:84% and ask the sun to melt the remnants of this haze 00:56:45.940 --> 00:56:47.770 align:middle line:90% around me. 00:56:47.770 --> 00:56:52.570 align:middle line:84% Then I hope the Earth will stun me with her power. 00:56:52.570 --> 00:56:58.900 align:middle line:84% And I'll gaze at each of you free of its distortions. 00:56:58.900 --> 00:57:03.070 align:middle line:84% Remember, my sisters, the sea and the sky, 00:57:03.070 --> 00:57:05.500 align:middle line:90% the mountains and hollows. 00:57:05.500 --> 00:57:10.570 align:middle line:84% Wait for us to break loose and follow that music 00:57:10.570 --> 00:57:15.220 align:middle line:84% we hear, music that urges us to move 00:57:15.220 --> 00:57:19.150 align:middle line:84% into the mysteries of our America. 00:57:19.150 --> 00:57:20.245 align:middle line:90% Come join me." 00:57:20.245 --> 00:57:23.490 align:middle line:90% 00:57:23.490 --> 00:57:30.960 align:middle line:84% And you have cedar trees here, right? 00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:31.722 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:57:31.722 --> 00:57:34.320 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:57:34.320 --> 00:57:39.190 align:middle line:84% There's a wonderful little cedar tree up in northern Minnesota. 00:57:39.190 --> 00:57:41.820 align:middle line:84% And this is the last poem that I'll read. 00:57:41.820 --> 00:57:43.950 align:middle line:84% But it's a wonderful little cedar tree. 00:57:43.950 --> 00:57:47.550 align:middle line:84% It must be about over 150 years old. 00:57:47.550 --> 00:57:52.230 align:middle line:84% And it's out on the middle of a rocky cliff. 00:57:52.230 --> 00:57:55.530 align:middle line:84% But the cliff itself is in the water. 00:57:55.530 --> 00:57:59.100 align:middle line:84% So it looks as if the tree is out surrounded 00:57:59.100 --> 00:58:01.440 align:middle line:90% by the rest of Lake Superior. 00:58:01.440 --> 00:58:06.150 align:middle line:84% And it's a very beautiful and strong spirit. 00:58:06.150 --> 00:58:09.270 align:middle line:84% And they call it the Little Spirit Cedar Tree, 00:58:09.270 --> 00:58:11.160 align:middle line:84% because it's been there for so long. 00:58:11.160 --> 00:58:18.800 align:middle line:84% And people go and talk to it and find a connection to that area. 00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:20.390 align:middle line:84% And so I thought what it would be 00:58:20.390 --> 00:58:23.810 align:middle line:84% like to have been a tree like that. 00:58:23.810 --> 00:58:26.540 align:middle line:84% I think the trees try to talk to us. 00:58:26.540 --> 00:58:29.210 align:middle line:84% And we need to try to talk to them. 00:58:29.210 --> 00:58:32.280 align:middle line:84% And I just felt a connection with it. 00:58:32.280 --> 00:58:34.830 align:middle line:84% So I thought I'd like to read this last poem. 00:58:34.830 --> 00:58:40.400 align:middle line:84% It's called "You Call Me Less Than All I Am." 00:58:40.400 --> 00:58:45.020 align:middle line:84% "For ages and ages, under clear summer nights, 00:58:45.020 --> 00:58:48.380 align:middle line:90% I bridged wind and stars. 00:58:48.380 --> 00:58:50.510 align:middle line:90% See how I live. 00:58:50.510 --> 00:58:54.920 align:middle line:84% Every bit of bark, every limb and flat leaf 00:58:54.920 --> 00:58:58.370 align:middle line:90% explores a different span. 00:58:58.370 --> 00:59:02.900 align:middle line:84% My canopy of edges nourished the origins 00:59:02.900 --> 00:59:06.380 align:middle line:90% of your blood, your brooding. 00:59:06.380 --> 00:59:10.010 align:middle line:84% Call me a cedar growing from rocks. 00:59:10.010 --> 00:59:14.330 align:middle line:84% Call me the record of Earth's blessing. 00:59:14.330 --> 00:59:19.490 align:middle line:84% Watch me curve, coil, throw a sinewy hook. 00:59:19.490 --> 00:59:22.250 align:middle line:90% Then come murmur with me. 00:59:22.250 --> 00:59:28.370 align:middle line:84% Let go the rigid patterns of streets and submarines. 00:59:28.370 --> 00:59:33.320 align:middle line:84% My resin scents the Earth as I grope through the velvet 00:59:33.320 --> 00:59:37.850 align:middle line:84% warmth of dirt just beyond your reach, 00:59:37.850 --> 00:59:41.510 align:middle line:90% just in need of your touch. 00:59:41.510 --> 00:59:46.160 align:middle line:84% My creators remind me of my girth. 00:59:46.160 --> 00:59:51.560 align:middle line:84% My leaves stop stars before your eyes. 00:59:51.560 --> 00:59:55.550 align:middle line:84% When the wind fills me, the music I 00:59:55.550 --> 00:59:59.150 align:middle line:90% am clings to every branch. 00:59:59.150 --> 01:00:03.710 align:middle line:84% Through me, see the processions of stars, 01:00:03.710 --> 01:00:06.440 align:middle line:90% the spiral dance of Earth. 01:00:06.440 --> 01:00:12.200 align:middle line:84% Through me, feel your backbone and your worth. 01:00:12.200 --> 01:00:16.160 align:middle line:84% What shelter without my green youth. 01:00:16.160 --> 01:00:21.440 align:middle line:84% My spirit always faces south and yours. 01:00:21.440 --> 01:00:26.900 align:middle line:84% When I creak, I offer my home to katies that did, 01:00:26.900 --> 01:00:29.360 align:middle line:90% to katies that didn't. 01:00:29.360 --> 01:00:31.070 align:middle line:90% And you?" 01:00:31.070 --> 01:00:32.570 align:middle line:90% OK, thank you. 01:00:32.570 --> 01:00:34.630 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 01:00:34.630 --> 01:00:38.000 align:middle line:90%