Nora Naranjo-Morse

John F. Kennedy New York City I saw him across the lobby flight 161 St. Louis Albuquerque. Coyote looked in control cool fitting right into the city smiling when a pretty woman passed him figuring out his flight making calculations from behind the New York Times. Slick right down to his Tony Lamas Coyote I’d recognize him anywhere Copenhagen New York Gallup. People say you can dress ’em up but once a coyote always a coyote.

Thung joo Kwa yaa na povi sah Thung joo Kwa yaa na povi sah Tsay ohi taa geh wo gi wa naa povi sah pin povi pin povi do mu u da kun ka nee na nun dun naa da si tah. On top of Black Mesa there are flowers On top of Black Mesa there are flowers dew on yellow flowers mountain flowers I see so far away that it makes me cry. She opened her eyes slowly, as if to awaken from a trance cast by a song, transporting her to childhood, Back to the flowers growing atop Black Mesa, so far and yet clearly brilliant. Awake from the song, Gia focused on her daughter, anxiously awaiting to be taught a new song. The old woman chose to take her time, she had learned from experience, attention is better paid by children, when there is a little pause, and mystery in storytelling. Soon enough Gia spoke . . . “When I was a young girl, my family would camp below Kwheng sa po, during the farming months. We spent most of our days following my grandmother through rows of corn and playing in the streams below. One day white men came in a wagon, telling us about a school for Indians, run by the government. We were told this school would educate and prepare us for jobs in the white man’s world. None of us knew what any of it meant, but these men spoke sweetly offering grandmother a roll of baling wire for each child that went to school. Before we knew what was happening, we were sitting in the back of their wagon, on our way to government school, away from our families, to another man’s world. Often we would cry, out of loneliness, but this song helped us to remember our home.” Get thoughtfully straightened the pleats on her skirt, swallowing the last of her coffee. Smiling, she continued . . . “The government school taught sewing, I learned on an electric machine. By the time I returned to the village I could sew, but few of the people had heard of sewing machines, or even electricity. The machine I learned to operate as my trade could not be carried here and there, but this song you are learning, will always be carried in your heart, here and there.”