 This is one of the loveliest readings I feel like I've been to in a long time. We're not readings, but artistic events. When I got the invitation to participate in this collection, the book by another queer native writer, Christos, is entitled Not Banishing, came up for me. And it is a book I've turned to many times in the recent political climate that we're in. Anyway, so endangered perhaps, but not banishing. Seven sides to the story. There are seven bison remaining in California. They live on the slope of an excavated hill. At dawn, they cluster together on the western edge of fence. There is no mountainside for them to hide in. White buffalo calf woman gave the Lakota the sacred pipe. She was Wakan and could not be harmed by arrow or bullet. The people had other weapons. She gave them seven sacred rituals and then disappeared into the white cloud of their disbelief. There are seven bison, 36,457,549 people in California. 549 people in California. That's an old number and I misread it, but there's a lot of us. The largest terrestrial mammal in North America, the bison live in the paddock the size of a city block. Darkly furred and humped, bison can live up to 20 years. In captivity, their lives are more precarious. They suffer from alcoholism, poverty, a sickness of spirit. 60 million bison once roamed the glass lands of North America. There are seven circling their pen. There is only one way to tell you this. We are endangered. Current rates of depensation make it unlikely that we will ever recover. My name is Aja Kushwa Duncan. Thank you so much. Thank you.