Many Farms Notes.
Taking on the Many Farms Arizona trip a couple of years ago.
One, hawk circles on the wind roads
only he knows how to follow to the center.
Two, hawks bright eyes reads tree, stones,
points in the horizon movements how wind and shadows play
tricks and sudden rabbit flurry which reminds
him of his empty stomach.
Three, a Tuba City girl asks me if I ever write from paintings.
I tell her that I write with visions in my head.
Four, I'm walking on a gallop.
He calls, hey, my friend why are you going to fast?
Many Farms.
Good luck, he says.
I smile for his good thoughts.
Five, a wind vision.
If you look into the Chinle Valley
you will see the woman's cover a tapestry her old mother worked
at for 10 million years or so.
Six, on the way south to the junction
I looked to the northeast but couldn't
decide whether that point in the distance
beyond the defiance uplift was Sonsela Butte or Fluted Rock.
Seven, the LA kid was a city child
and a Navajo rodeo queen who said
she'd seen me on the road coming out of Window Rock
said her friend had said, I think that was him.
We just passed him up and felt so bad.
He said she was born in LA but wasn't really a city girl
and visited her homeland every summer
and said her mother was born in Lukachukai.
Eight, bear occurs several times, of course.
The day before I went to Many Farms
I received a card from Snyder, said
he had spent a day watching grizzly bear
grizzling at the San Diego zoo.
Navajo girl had a painting of bear.
He was facing east and looking up.
A line was drawn through him from chest
to tail, rainbow muted colors.
And I said, that line seems to be
both the horizon and the ground line from where you start.
She told me about what the people say.
Don't ever whistle at night where
bears are because female bears do that when they are caught
and bear's around.
Remember that, she said, don't whistle in the dark horny bear
night.
That Navajo girl asked me what I thought about polygamy.
I told her I thought it was a good idea but not for keeps,
and we laughed.
I wonder how many wives bear has.
Nine, for a Monday night supper we
had mutton ribs, round steak, good Isleta bread, tortillas,
broccoli, green chili, potatoes, gravy, coffee, and apple pie.
The mutton was tough and Francis said,
you got to be tough to live on this land.
10, after I got out of the back of a red pickup truck,
I walked for about a mile and met three goats, two sheep,
and a lamb by the side of the road.
I was wearing a bright red wool cap pulled over my ears,
and I suppose they thought I was maybe weird because they
were all eyes and ears.
I said, yaahteh, my friends.
I'm from Acoma, just passing through.
The sheep with the bell jingled it
in greeting a couple of times.
I could almost hear the elder sheep telling the younger,
you don't see very many Acoma poets passing through here.
11, what would you say that the main theme of your poetry is?
She asked.
To put it as simply as possible I
say it's this way, to recognize the relationships
I share with everything.
I would like to know well the path
from just east of Black Mountain to the gray outcropping of Roof
Butte.
Without having to worry about the shortest way possible.
12, I worried about two women discussing
how to get rid of a forming child without too much trouble
whether it would be in the hospital in Gallup
or in Ganado.
Please forgive my worry and my concern.
13, are you going to Gallup, shima?
Yes, $1.50 please.