WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:26.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:32.450 align:middle line:84% So the Indigenous activists, Amber Ortega and Nellie Jo 00:00:32.450 --> 00:00:43.070 align:middle line:84% David, peacefully obstructed the border wall construction 00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:47.670 align:middle line:84% near Quitobaquito Springs a while back. 00:00:47.670 --> 00:00:57.110 align:middle line:84% And this poem begins with a epigraph from Nellie Jo David: 00:00:57.110 --> 00:01:00.353 align:middle line:84% "I just felt like he was fighting us with his machine." 00:01:00.353 --> 00:01:02.990 align:middle line:90% 00:01:02.990 --> 00:01:09.320 align:middle line:90% "Resistors" 00:01:09.320 --> 00:01:14.160 align:middle line:84% In Guadalajara to see where Motorola took the line 00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:17.940 align:middle line:84% my grandmother worked on, I can't find the site 00:01:17.940 --> 00:01:22.640 align:middle line:84% but spend the days in naves of a deconsecrated church 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:27.590 align:middle line:84% looking up at frescoes by Orozco. 00:01:27.590 --> 00:01:30.560 align:middle line:90% Here is a horse, 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:36.620 align:middle line:84% a tow chain for tail, train, piston for hock and hoof. 00:01:36.620 --> 00:01:43.200 align:middle line:84% Over murdered Mexica, Cortez stands, lug nut hips 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:48.350 align:middle line:84% & kneecaps, gauntleted hand at the sword hilt, silver 00:01:48.350 --> 00:01:51.230 align:middle line:90% as a knot of solder. 00:01:51.230 --> 00:01:53.840 align:middle line:90% Opposite him, the Franciscan 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:55.770 align:middle line:90% & his Latin cross-- 00:01:55.770 --> 00:01:58.700 align:middle line:90% miter-sawed angles hewn down 00:01:58.700 --> 00:02:04.610 align:middle line:84% to dagger point-- and an angel in assembly-line armor 00:02:04.610 --> 00:02:08.240 align:middle line:84% lifting a bloodied banner with the stenciled letters 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:13.440 align:middle line:84% of an alphabet, the one I must have started learning, 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:18.820 align:middle line:84% sing-song in the pitch & timbre of milk teeth, at 48th 00:02:18.820 --> 00:02:23.810 align:middle line:84% & Willetta, a one-bedroom duplex west of Papago's 00:02:23.810 --> 00:02:28.540 align:middle line:84% greasewood & buttes of sandstone & a block down 00:02:28.540 --> 00:02:31.720 align:middle line:84% from the Motorola where my grandmother punched 00:02:31.720 --> 00:02:35.990 align:middle line:84% in nights to look after a conveyor of semiconductors-- 00:02:35.990 --> 00:02:41.020 align:middle line:84% those nascent ancient rotaries strung up to starlight 00:02:41.020 --> 00:02:46.660 align:middle line:84% & empire, gaslighting like that Gast painting of progress 00:02:46.660 --> 00:02:52.450 align:middle line:84% & whiteness wrapped in telegraph wire, lithe & looping 00:02:52.450 --> 00:02:55.960 align:middle line:90% as cake shop box string. 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:59.390 align:middle line:90% No wall on O'odham land, 00:02:59.390 --> 00:03:02.410 align:middle line:84% I hear the woman today protest from the bucket 00:03:02.410 --> 00:03:04.870 align:middle line:90% of a front-end loader-- 00:03:04.870 --> 00:03:07.340 align:middle line:90% a Caterpillar, by her presence, 00:03:07.340 --> 00:03:12.850 align:middle line:84% dumbstruck on tread wheels tall as vault doors, its maw 00:03:12.850 --> 00:03:18.040 align:middle line:84% metal hollow, a confessional or old Mountain Bell phone 00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:21.970 align:middle line:84% booth she stepped into amid the felled saguaro 00:03:21.970 --> 00:03:25.390 align:middle line:90% & ribs of organ pipe. 00:03:25.390 --> 00:03:29.020 align:middle line:90% Her body where dirt goes says 00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:33.670 align:middle line:84% her body is the land the wall wants to eat. 00:03:33.670 --> 00:03:36.010 align:middle line:90% I stream this-- 00:03:36.010 --> 00:03:40.240 align:middle line:84% download by data plan, by bandwidth, from the cloud 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:43.450 align:middle line:84% servers deep in their grid deserts to the crystalline 00:03:43.450 --> 00:03:47.560 align:middle line:84% & rare earth minerals making my cell phone 00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:52.210 align:middle line:84% black box theater, making her code, making her 00:03:52.210 --> 00:03:57.820 align:middle line:84% algorithm-- both soprano & Mario Sávio-- 00:03:57.820 --> 00:03:58.480 align:middle line:90% the solder 00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:04.660 align:middle line:84% seemingly quantum leap from soldada & solidarity. 00:04:04.660 --> 00:04:09.880 align:middle line:84% Still, I remember the ram's horn baritone in my nana's 00:04:09.880 --> 00:04:13.780 align:middle line:84% King James, imagine her driving those years with rioters 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:18.430 align:middle line:84% to shepherd the sound through solid state & know the harder 00:04:18.430 --> 00:04:25.960 align:middle line:84% truth, the defiant mic this woman makes, resonates 00:04:25.960 --> 00:04:30.000 align:middle line:84% with her body within the digger's teeth. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:34.000 align:middle line:90%