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I have lived 19,404 midnights, some of them in the quaver of

   fish dreams

And some without any memory at all, just the flash of the

 jump

From a night rainbow, to an island of fire and flowers - such

 a holy

Leap between forgetting and jazz. How long has it been

 since I called you back?

After Albuquerque with my baby in diapers on my hip; it

 was a difficult birth,

I was just past girlhood slammed into motherhood. What a

 bear.

Beyond the door of my tongue is a rail and I'm leaning over

 to watch bears

Catch salmon in their teeth. That realm isn't anywhere near

 Los Angeles. If I dream

It all back then I reconstruct that song buried in the muscle

 of urgency. I'm bereft

In the lost nation of debtors. Wey yo hey, wey yo hey yah

 hey. Pepper jumped

And some of us went with him to the stomp. All night,

 beyond midnight, back

Up into the sky, holy.

from We Were There When Jazz Was Invented

Joy Harjo

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