Somebody left a bottle of water.
Thank you so much.
I'm so thirsty.
[LAUGHTER]
So happy it was there.
I come from weavers.
They wove on a loom, and I weave on paper.
And on my-- spent summers with my grandmother,
who was a Weaver.
She would have my cousin and I clean--
card the wool that was dirty.
And then once we got it cleaned off with everything on it,
then we'd roll it up for her.
And then she'd take that with her spin,
and then she'd start spinning.
And she always had stories to go along with what we were doing,
or give us advice.
We were just about 12 years old.
And there's a word-- several words in here.
Iich'ąhii is the moths that fly around,
and are attracted to light.
And then I call her Nalí because she's my paternal grandmother.
Moth madness.
Moths circle the kerosene lamp on the floor that sheds
a dim light on our night work.
My cousin and I keep carding the woolly clumps.
Twigs
And dirt that clung to the sheep from their wanderings
among sagebrush
And thistle drop into our laps.
We card and card to transform them into layers of soft clouds
for Nalí's spindle,
Iich'ąhii, says Nalí,
Almost in a whisper, like she was afraid to stir the name,
Like the name might release something formed from night.
Iich'ąhii, the word flutters in the shadows
And cautions against all that is unbalanced in the glittering
world,
The reckless, the violators, the amoral, evil floating
all around,
That must be righted with songs and prayers.
Baa'hádzid!
she claims-- she exclaims, no longer whispering,
Harsh cautions against a suicidal jump into the fire.
I would learn what it means to yearn for the fire
burning in a stranger,
The coup de foudre that matched my own moth madness.
Nalí's spindle tilts like the Earth's axis
that she spins against her thigh.
Clouds of wool transform again into strands
of color for her loom that becomes her world.
She calls the earth and sky,
She calls stories of female mountains,
She calls stories of male mountains to her,
Geometric designs to balance the world against the moth madness.
[APPLAUSE]