This is the-- I'm going to leave you with this next poem.
And as important as it was for me
to read the poem about my mother's song
and what's happening in this picture, I also wanted you--
I also wanted to leave you with a hope of the children poem,
and this poem, because when I look into the faces of the women
I'm going to be showing you, I feel a hopefulness.
"[SPEAKING TEWA].
I am a singing water woman like my mother and her mother
and her mother, Nan chu Kweejo, clay mother,
whose roots bed deep beyond crust of layered skin to
[SPEAKING TEWA], to the center of her abode,
down into the core of her relentless drive, determination,
and spirit to her well opening, to the birthing place, sacred,
deep, [SPEAKING TEWA].
Sacred, warm.
[SPEAKING TEWA]
Her center is this dance, is this dance of feet
lifting into plowed--
[SOUND OF SLIDE BEING ADVANCED] Is this dance
of feet lifting into plowed fields
to become nourishment for our men?
We dance behind.
We lay with.
We work beside.
[SPEAKING TEWA]
These men we bring forth from our center.
[SPEAKING TEWA]
I am a singing water woman who plasters endless walls
with skinned knuckles, who will run wild into coyote nights
singing death songs, birth songs.
I am a singing water woman, born from matriarchs
who call themselves gia, mothers of our mother,
wrinkled, worn, weathered, unyielding with eggshell hearts.
Daughters who become their mothers.
Matriarchs who will take their turn
singing death songs, baking wedding breads,
soothing broken hearts, compassionate, tender,
willful, stubborn, and loyal, with the same enduring spirit,
determination, and drive.
My daughter, [SPEAKING TEWA].
My daughter is a singing water woman."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]