People of The Water

Yesterday was a blur of faces that I will hear in my head as I walk far into the growing heat of the sun. We don't wake up and plan to fall in love. We are running with our head down, or as in my case walking fast with a heavy load, and we trip with all of our perfect plans skidding before us in colored pieces of paper that no longer mean anything. After hours on the radio doing the morning show with Dana Childs on 95.9 Quick, and talking with George Werito on the Navajo station KNDZ 960 am I am off to speak at some of the local schools. I do not know that I will not come back whole, something that was once inside me will now trail behind...trying to catch up, but slowed by constantly looking back.
When I walk into the classroom of the Farmington Boys and Girls Club I see no relation, young men and women just stepping on the bridge that leads to being an adult, still carrying the face of a child in their hand, or arms crossed against the world that has already bruised them. I start to talk about where I came from and the memory I have of bones that have healed. Arms uncross. I am in all their faces, as they step into mine, testing the flooring for a trip wire with their questions. We talk about seeds planted inside us, inside them, fetal, husk unchallenged, arms-legs kicking and punching to nowhere. I water with words and love that I am just a man, no halo, no sword, no line of full blood honor that explains why I run the race. I come from broken pieces, shards of words that held like devil thorn, pains that now far under my skin. We are related. A tall fire burns in the center of us all as we sit with our brown, red, and white faces staring into the flames of the past, the future. What is dormant under our skin that our home fire is unable to see. What worth is packed in our small faces now so tight ready to punch out in defense? Everthing is rising in me, in them. We are all knees on a bed staring at a map of our futures with fingers tracing out hope.
I do not come bringing apples, or seeds. I have only words. "The seed is inside you I say," eyes unblinking. I have never said more.
When I leave I am given hugs I still feel when I am not breathing.