Thank you.
This is my last piece.
It's inspired from my anti-mining organizing
work I do up in the Black Hills, at He Sapa.
And I'm really thankful, again, for this.
I'm excited to hear who's next.
And again, I don't want this to end,
but this is a piece I actually workshopped this week.
It's a piece that I put together a few weeks ago,
and got to work with Rob Arnold-- the dear Rob Arnold--
on it.
And I'm excited to show the workshop
crew what I've done with it.
A letter to Pe' Sla and the Wasicu.
Dear Pe' Sla, the wasicu wants to pierce your skin,
Stab into your graphite veins and bleed you dry,
But we will defend you so that wakaƞyeja may know your name,
May know your place as the center
of the heart of all that is,
May know you as you are now full of medicines,
uƞjiƞjiƞkta na pejihota tiƞpsiƞla na icahpe hu
Home to the winged and four-legged home to generations
of our ancestors' prayers,
We will fight for you so that the world
will remember your name,
uƞniksuyapi, uƞniksuyapi, uƞniksuyapi.
Dear Wasicu, we deserve to carry--
Dear Wasicu, the land is our church
We do not want the places we stand and pray slashed,
and cut for profit and greed,
We deserve to practice our religion,
Passed down for generations in peace,
We deserve to carry forward to the wakaƞyeja
To all future generations,
Our prayers, our practices, our language, our culture,
On a land that is healthy, that is protected, that is whole,
The land is our relative, she deserves to be treated as such,
I pray the greed that drives you dissipates like dew on the grass
at Pe' Sla,
As the sun rises on a new day,
And your plan to harm our relative becomes but a memory,
Nothing more than the dust at the bottom of my feet.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]