YAHWEH [Poetry] is the highest of all languages... higher even than mathematics. It is on a plane with music. - N. Scott Momaday

In the white man's world, language, too — and the way which the white man thinks of it — has undergone a process of change. The white man takes such things as words and literatures for granted, as indeed he must, for nothing in his world is so commonplace. On every side of him there are words by the millions, an unending succession of pamphlets and papers, letters and books, bills and bulletins, commentaries and conversations. He has diluted and multiplied the Word, and words have begun to close in on him. He is sated and insensitive; his regard for language — for the Word itself — as an instrument of creation has diminished nearly to the point of no return. It may be that he will perish by the Word.

My father told me stories from the Kiowa oral tradition even before I could talk. Those stories became permanent... the nourishment of my imagination for the whole of my life. They are among the most valuable gifts I have ever been given.

In the land is made of many colors. When I was a boy I rode out over the red and yellow and purple earth to the west of Jemez Pueblo. ...I came to know that country... truly and intimately, in every season, from a thousand points of view. I know the living sound motion of a horse and the sound of hooves. I know what it is, on a hot day in August or September, to ride into a bank of cold, fresh rain.