WEBVTT

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This next poem is titled
"Navajo Introduction."

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My friends used to joke,
no clans after midnight

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And elders would shake
rippled heads as sun--

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Thank you, Navajos in the room.

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[LAUGHS]

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--From the east landed
the long-pointed lips

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spinning, and
spinning, and spinning

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With string from
loose, crinkled hands,

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forming the two
coyotes in diyoga.

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I had a crush on a boy
in class until I realized

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he was my cousin by clan

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Tangled and sticky
yarn that unravels

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like our umbilical cords
buried in rich farm dirts

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I still think about
him sometimes,

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and the distasteful
burning I'd feel on my lips

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From nights I used to fantasize
about his before I knew

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Haash dóone'é nílí.

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Yá'át'ééh shí éí yinishyé.

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It is good, it is good

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Hello, I am, I am
sunshine, I am medicine

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Tłààshchí'í nishłíí dóó
Ta'neeszahnii bàshíshchíín.

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I am Red Cheek Clan, born
for the Tangled People Clan

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My mother used to
joke we're Red Bottoms

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Your butt was bright
red when you were born

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I learned later there
are two translations

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Red cheek, red bottom

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A clan passed down from
my mother and her mother,

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And all those Red Cheek
Clan mothers before her

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Who were born with red bottoms
and mesa pinched cheeks

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I was told by my
father that I was born

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with my hand palm outstreched,

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Reaching out at
my mother's vagina

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Children are supposed to be
born headfirst, crowned, bloody,

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and round,

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Not reaching and reaching
as though they're

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chasing invisible butterflies

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Now, when my fingers
clench and bend

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as I move from place to place,

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I think about how the first
part of me to enter the world

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were my fingertips

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Reaching and reaching, perhaps
for another hand to hold

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Reaching for a name
to hold, a family,

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An old T-shirt
wrinkled from my grip

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as you attempted to pull me off

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Because why was I
holding on so tight?

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What was I holding on to?

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The first thing they teach
us in Navajo language, one

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is our clans

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How to say our name
and where we're from

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How do I say that I came
from my mother's vagina

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With my tiny right arm
straight and sprawled

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How do I say that my name
came from a Navajo man,

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An old artist friend my
father knew, Daniel Sandin,

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A man I've never met, never
heard my father talk about

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An image of a person
I can't conjure,

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But lingers in the breath
of my Navajo introduction

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With elders shake their heads,
knowing that my mom had me

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before marriage

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That I was the
reason they married

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In my hands, I watch as
string droops with light

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from the early morning

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Of when I thought of confronting
my father about his first family

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Before me and my sisters and my
brother and our mother all knew

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Nearly 18 years later

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Yá'át'ééh shí éí yinishyé.

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It is good, it is good

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Hello, I am Tłààshchí'í nishłíí
dóó Ta'neeszahnii bàshíshchíín.

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I am Red Cheek Clan, born
for the Tangled People Clan

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Ashííhí éí dashicheii dóó
Táchii'nii éí dashinálí.

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My maternal grandfather
is the Salt People Clan

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And my paternal grandmother--
grandfather, sorry,

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Is the Red Running
into Water People Clan

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And it is good, it is good

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Even as my family swirls
round and round in the wind,

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Tied together by our
fingertips with white yarn that

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unravels from a wise blanket

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Smeared with warm winter
sunlight on our mouths

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And dripping black
coffee on our tongues,

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I say my introduction
with a voice

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that reflects all the good
things that come from the sun,

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All the good things that
those before me have passed on

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Through love, through
care and shale memory

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Through names and old crushed
faces, like thousands of stars

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So' łani many stars
gathered, collected,

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Like copper pennies in my
tiny outstretched hand.

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Ahéhee'.

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Thank you.

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[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

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