I am a daughter of that land,
Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand
Are most divine, —where the earth and sky,
Are picture both and poetry—
I am of Florence.

Beloved, you are my sister, you are my daughter, you are my face; you are me.

I am an elder, and I keep the earth. When I was
a boy I first became aware of the beautiful world
in which I lived. It was a world of rich colors — red
canyons and blue mesas, green fields and yellow-
ochre sands, silver clouds, and mountains that
changed from black to charcoal to purple and iron. It
was a world of great distances. The sky was so deep
that it had no end, and the air was run through with
sparkling light. It was a world in which I was wholly
alive. I knew even then that it was mine and that I
would keep it forever in my heart. It was essential
to my being. I touch pollen to my face. I wave cedar
smoke upon my body. I am a Kiowa man. My Kiowa
name is Tsoai-talee, “Rock Tree Boy.” These are the
words of Tsoai-talee.

This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land is made for you and me.

Lines for My Daughter

With reverence for the earth you venture
into vague margins of advancing rain
and behold crystals of the sailing sun.

The clouds weave ribbons of shade and eclipse,
rippling on the colors that compose you,
sand, sienna, jade, the speckled turquoise

of mountain skies. And in your supple mind
there are shaped the legends of creation,
and in them you appear as dawn appears,

beautiful in the whispers of the wind,
whole among the soft syllables of myth
and the rhythms of serpentine rivers.

Once more you venture. The long days darken
In the wake of your going, and thunder
Rolls, bearing you across a ridge of dreams.

I follow on the drifts of sweetgrass and smoke,
On a meadow path of pollen I walk,
And hold fast the great gift of your being.

Precious Auntie, what is our name? I always meant to claim it as my own. Come help me remember. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm not afraid of ghosts. Are you still mad at me? Don't you recognize me? I am LuLing, your daughter.

I am the wind that wavers, </br> You are the certain land; </br> I am the shadow that passes </br> Over the sand.

Sir, I am not in your land, but in my own.

I am Aeaea. To my notion there is no other lady anywhere. And I resent your calling this a silly myth. I made the myth and it is not silly; charming rather. Well, come along, come along! You are my things now, and you will come when I call you.

We are the land, and the land is mother to us all.

Song of a first born daughter to the beats of gangan.
I am the first fruit of your loins.
Seasoned with grace.
Seasoned with salt.
I stride to drumbeats.
Flywhisks attend my hands.
Like anklets of brass, joy encircles.
I am the consolation,
born for the day of affliction.
I am the vigour,
the virgin seed,
roosting under coverlets of aso-oke.
Down the winding road, I nurture the handkerchiefs
for champions who cry...
Behold the daughter,
your blessed harvest.
Your basket of plump yams.
Your scented one.

Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness — she with those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, gliding over the heads of men to trap us all. She entangles one man, now another.

I am Tsoai-talee, Rock Tree Boy, and I will carry that name to the end of the world and beyond. I will keep to the trees and waters, and I will be the singing of the soil. In my truest being I am a keeper of the earth. I will tell the ancient stories and I will sing the holy songs. I belong to the land.

When my people were brought over here from Asia and Africa, they were given various names, such as Jones and Smith. I haven't adopted a name. It's a part of my ancestral background and heritage: I have re-established my original name. I have gone back to my own vine and fig tree.