In a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone, Until somebody got out of line. - Joy Harjo

What we haven't imagined will one day
spit us out
magnificent and simple.
-Fury of Rain

In the short-root mind, a kind of mind of a people whose children don't even know the names of their great-grandparents, there is no past. Everything is right now. This kind of mind has its roots in the material culture, in what can be accumulated. My great-grandfather reminds me that we need to keep within the long-rooted mind. Because of the longer roots we have a larger structure of knowing from which to take on understanding.

There were no Native names in the American book of poetry when I began writing poetry, though there are many.