WEBVTT

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And a lot of this, the poems
in this book are about,

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it's a love.

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I guess you'd call
it a love letter.

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To this place on the
Navajo Nation Homeland

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called Tséyi', which
means deep in the rock.

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And it's known on maps
as Canyon De Chelly.

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I'm sure some of
you have been there.

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It's a very beautiful place.

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So these poems are
focused on that place.

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And I grew up on the other
side of that mountain.

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But I never went there
until I was in college.

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Blue horses running.

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Possibilities exist
with you where sagebrush

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dots the desert scape,
where a string of crows

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float like beads
on a turquoise sky,

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and where mountains hold plants
spread out like a blanket.

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We traveled the colors of
brilliant red rock cliffs that

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form within ancestral space.

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We travel on the
colors of the rainbow

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and know what it means
to come forth, to awaken.

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Here, it's possible that--

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here it's possible to know
that you belong to the Earth.

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In a language that names
us, that this place

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formed you, and carved the
high bones in your face.

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Cedar and rock monoliths
know the motion of wind.

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The patience of waiting,
the gathering of strength.

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Here, it's possible
to know the world,

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in the words of our ancestors.

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The simple beauty of
blue horses running.

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[APPLAUDING]

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