Read by the Author

According to the notes to the sound-tape that accompanied the first edition of Always Coming Home, these poems will have been going to be recorded on site in the Valley of the Na, by the archeologist Pandora, a very long time from now. According to other sources, they were recorded in Todd Barton's studio in Ashland, by Tabit and Intrumo, in 1985. The language is Kesh.

The "Sun Dance Poem" is a meditational poem, made and spoken by the carpenter Buck of Sinshan, recorded in the Blue Clay heyimas in December. The Sun Dance or winter solstice festival is the greatest ceremony of the Kesh year, celebrating the mystical rejoining into a round dance of all that seems separate, the earth and sky, the near and far, the unborn, the living, and the dead.

Wakwahwav Arrakou

Rru wetom darra daigoravanes

hwa

(...sa, par, arai)

Híó lemaha yelemaha
Híó logolemaha yelemaha
Híó folilolemaha yelemaha
Híó lemaha emwey yelemaha

Viddisur hwoi udsurd gade ambad shewey
haitrousur baroi udsurd gade ambad shewey
peuvyaisur gadesur yai amoud shewey
inyesur inye poud wey shewey

Rru whehom darra daigoravanes

geshe

(...peham, rahem, yai)

Yewey gewakwa yehoum
emwey logowakwa,

yehoum,

folilowakwa yehoum.
ge-emweyem wakwa-an yehoum

Sun Dance Poem

Once you said the round word:

sun

(...sky, light, day)

May beauty be beautiful
May beauty have been beautiful
May beauty still be beautiful
May beauty always be beautiful

We are weak and need help from all
We are afraid and need kindness from all
We are foolish and need to think together
We are nothing much without one another

Once you said this round word:

life

(death, soul, mind)

It is mysterious, endless
It has always been mysterious,

endless,

the dance will go on, endless.
it is going on in mystery, endless