Those are all new poems.
I'm going to read one poem from my latest collection just
to close out, and it is a poem that honors communities
and what we mean to one another.
About standing in kinship.
We all have the same little bones in our foot
26 with funny names like navicular
Together they build something strong
Our foot arch, a pyramid holding us up
These bones don't get casts when they break
We tape them one phalange to its neighbor for support
Other things work that way to find healing
in the leaning, the closeness
Our feet have one quarter of all the bones in our body
Maybe we should give more honor to feet and to all
the tiny but blessed cogs in the world
Communities, the forgotten architecture of friendship.
Chi-miigwech.
[APPLAUSE, CHEER]