Note from November 30, 2002

  

Perhaps shadows from tallow candles

darted against lodge walls

and smokehole peaks like does the 

candle flame on this table flickers

in time to the accentuated breaths of 

the flute player ...

Perhaps these Hidatsa-Mandan strains 

have been heard upon this very land

two hundred years ago,

perhaps a thousand,

and the land needs to hear it again.