At the heart of American Indian oral tradition is a deep and unconditional belief in the efficacy of language. Words are intrinsically powerful. They… - N. Scott Momaday

And the simple act of listening is crucial to the concept of language, more crucial even than reading and writing, and language in turn is crucial to human society.

When my parents and I moved to Jemez I was twelve years old. ...The village and the valley, the canyons and the mountains had been there from the beginning of time, waiting form me.

Meditation on Wilderness

In the evening’s orange and umber light,
There comes vagrant ducks skidding on the pond.
Together they veer inward to the reeds.
The forest — aspen, oak, and pine — recedes,
And the sky is smudged on the ridge beyond.
There is more in my soul than in my sight.

I would move to the other side of sound;
I would be among the bears, keeping still,
Not watching, waiting instead. I would dream,
And in that old bewilderment would seem
Whole in a beyond of dreams, primal will
Drawn to the center of this dark surround.

The sacred here emerges and abides.
The day burns down, the hours dissolve in time;
The bears parade the deeper continent
As silences pervade the firmament,
And wind wavers on the radiant rime.
Here is the house where wilderness resides.