 I too wrote a poem about being with the Indians and but I wrote it a year ago and if anything it's more relevant today because of Standing Rock. I wrote it inspired by a retreat I went on and in the Black Hills of South Dakota organized by the Zen peacemakers and the Lakota, Dakota and Sioux people. I went there to bear witness to the shameful history and the results of the genocide of native peoples across what became our country. I'd like to dedicate this a reading to the people of Standing Rock, the people at Standing Rock and also to the ongoing struggles of the Ohlone people to assert their rights and breathe new life into their cultural heritage and I call on all of us to remember that it is Ohlone ancestral land that we gather here today. Finally before I read my poem which is called Woody Guthrie's misunderstanding I'd like to say for those of you not so familiar with American cultural heroes that Woody Guthrie was a famous folk singer, a working-class poet who sang his poems as a couple of you have done today while traveling around our country with his guitar telling the stories of poor people during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Probably his most well-known song is this land is your land which I reference in this poem. I hope Woody actually a hero of mine would have liked my poem despite my daring to say that his lyrics in this case are worth looking at again. Woody Guthrie's misunderstanding. After five days with the Indians hearing their stories of not so long ago losses on bloody battlefields and in boarding schools and just last week in a double wide on the res when the sheriff was called yet again to a suicide scene his teenage daughter's best friend. After five days with the Indians and mostly that is the name they prefer hearing stories of this land for thousands of years shared land cared for not owned never for sale then merely hundreds of years someone's land for the taking the raping the auctioning off to the highest bidder. After five days listening and three weeks traveling on this land from California to the Pine Ridge sadlands past lakes of the ghost dance past sights of the Sundance sullied now with toxic mind tailings stinking pits all there was to take taken in the name of destiny and progress. After five days of studying rhythms cleansing sage encircling ceremonies around the fire suddenly Woody's well-intentioned protest is not the song that wants to be sung this land from the Gulf Stream water to the Redwood Forest is not my land nor your land nor even our land if you mean only a homeland for two-legged two small minded creatures. This land is the land the mother who birthed us the earth that sustains us where bundled offerings hang from branches where buffalo graze again where water greens grass and wind carries sounds of flute and drum across father sky pass the milky way to all creation in all directions where all is possessed by no one.