[0:17] I was interviewing some folks in care centers for a program called Art for Life, sponsored by the North Dakota Council on the Arts.

[0:30] And it happened that COVID happened at the same time. So I was doing a phone interview with these four lovely women all in their 90s from the heritage home near Jamestown, North Dakota.

[0:45] And we were talking about isolation and how they were going to handle this COVID thing and

[0:51] and it all said, oh, this isn't nothing, we know how to take care of ourselves and each

[0:58] other.

[0:59] And so I just took notes on my yellow legal pad while they were speaking on the phone and then

[1:07] later I tried to find the poetry and in their lovely words and their hearts.

[1:12] And they all talked about, even growing up, how fortunate they were to have had a chance

[1:19] to work with horses and how that carried through into all of their lives.

[1:25] And also that they said, you know, we never knew we were poor.

[1:30] We always had time to go out on Saturday night, even after a hard work, a week of work.

[1:38] And so there was a lot of wisdom there I thought.

[1:41] And so I called this the Four Wise.

[1:56] Donna was a small town girl.

[2:00] But a man who changed her word, a farmer.

[2:06] With a wheat field lawn,

[2:12] several years they worked along.

[2:16] When he passed, she carried on.

[2:19] She farmed along,

[2:23] quarter century.

[2:24] She

[2:28] talks about the days that come

[2:32] To be afraid she ain't that one

[2:36] Ever bored to

[2:40] have been

[2:48] the Saturday

[2:49] Hands that cares away

[2:54] Horses, never knew we were

[2:58] Among the common food

[3:14] Better man, she loved right on

[3:17] They've married

[3:26] The evening quilts were sewn

[3:29] To warm souls of those unknown, her love, to

[3:45] best, until he met, he turned arrest, he was who he was.

[4:01] Working hands, her strong

[4:19] Saturday,

[4:46] the storm

[4:56] had to

[4:59] fill the

[5:02] sky to gift, good attitude.

[5:06] Young at heart,

[5:22] pretty good,

[5:26] the best you can't

[5:34] have a Saturday.

[5:35] And

[5:54] stuck his way

[6:18] was a small town girl met a man who changed her

[6:29] with a wheat field

[6:45] Well it's June last day of June

[6:53] and a beautiful moon a June moon

[7:01] last chance to get out

[7:03] find a hay field smell some sweet clover alfalfa fresh green grass especially

[7:11] out we had a little rain,

[7:19] June fields. A good night to be out in a hang your heart on the moon

[7:25] field. This is written on open swathor.

[7:30] Watch in the hay tumble out into a wind row behind, which would be cured by the sun and then gathered up to be bailed or maybe chopped.

[8:04] And if you're lucky,

[8:07] and you hear the words rise and up, if you're lucky,

[8:14] you'll have a screw driver or a rusty nail.

[8:18] The scratch-down the lyrics you're being given into the rust on the control panel.

[8:38] The more

[8:43] shadows shall all live fall.

[8:48] I will,

[8:53] like the haste and the tall, to the real land

[9:02] as they gather the take.

[9:05] into the region of winter

[9:12] and in stern we were weak and feel

[11:10] while the moon blazes

[11:33] in

[11:35] sweet grass

[12:28] tonight's the night gang tonight's the night well I had the privilege

[12:32] of going to a one room school for eight years little heart school number two

[12:38] south of Mandan about eight miles and I'll never forget that exciting day I

[12:44] I think I was probably in, I don't know, fourth or fifth grade, and the book mobile arrived.

[12:52] The citizens of Martin County had voted to raise their taxes a little tiny bit, so us

[13:00] farm kids could have equal access to all kinds of books, all kinds of books.

[13:07] And we got to go into the book mobile when it first arrived that first day, and I will never

[13:13] forget. It was crowded in there because there was just the narrow pathway between the racks

[13:19] of books and the smell of the books and the ink and the glue was something that I'll never

[13:26] forget in the excitement. And somehow not knowing what book to choose a book chose me and it was

[13:40] in my hands. I don't know how I got there. But it was a book called Ferdinand the Bull about

[13:47] Ferdinand the Bull who lived just outside of Madrid's Spain and he had been recruited to go

[13:57] to the bullfight in Madrid to a fight. But Ferdinand was quite happy where he was out on the hills

[14:09] around Madrid under his cork tree where he loved to just sit and smell the flowers, but he

[14:16] got recruited to go fight. But when he got into the bullring,

[14:22] he smelled the flowers that were

[14:24] in the ladies' hair and in their fancy bonnets and the flowers that they had thrown out for the

[14:39] but Ferdinand was taken back to his pasture.

[14:46] And he didn't fight because he was afraid or a coward.

[14:53] He didn't fight because he was courageous and brave, brave enough to...

[15:00] To be who he truly had been created to be, long before he was born, brave enough to know his peaceful heart, and to live his peaceful heart.

[15:14] And I think about Ferdinand a lot, especially these days, and I think he's still there. I know he is, I know he is, because he lives in my heart.

[15:26] now and now he can live in yours or whoever hears this story and I know he's under his

[15:36] cork tree smelling the flowers cool in the shade

[16:48] even spank

[19:43] you for a man. Well, I see it summer and we got a heat wave coming. So I don't

[19:49] know how many outdoor pools are in small towns around the area anymore, but in the town that

[19:56] I grew up near Mandan, the outdoor pool was the sort of the center of, well, I'll say cultural

[20:04] activity which is a pretty broad elm umbrella. And it was the place to be, I guess, I didn't

[20:12] get to go in a lot because I was mostly working on the farm. But a few times I did get in

[20:18] there. And I remember being warned by the lifeguard, not cross over the rope and get sucked

[20:26] into the deep and I never quite knew what that meant but it sounded pretty scary and I

[20:36] know that even though the pool was closed during the night it was still used so it's called

[20:48] down in the water, do they fall?

[21:07] At the big pool, summer evening, trying to keep cool.

[21:13] They had suck in, and the heat flew,

[21:17] when they laid down in the

[21:23] world of waking.

[21:25] In the night shed, jealous angels,

[21:29] shaking their heads, laughing lovers,

[21:33] all the fear fled,

[21:39] went whenever,

[21:40] Love is true, very nothing.

[21:57] Life will pitch, yeah. To the shoulder, up the middle,

[22:03] low and over. You don't have to,

[22:14] older. Watch and light flying, screw and shorter.

[22:19] Still the light shines, stronger shadows, over lifetimes,

[22:27] down in the warm.

[22:30] Whenever love is true, there's nothing you can do. It ain't always

[23:01] up

[23:12] to

[23:53] you. And you don't have to hit the homeer.

[23:58] I love singing and writing and living where I do,

[24:03] but it was quite some time before I realized it really realized that

[24:13] there was life going on here long before my ancestors arrived in the in the late 1800s

[24:20] and that there was love happening and games happening and hunting happening and

[24:30] life happening

[24:33] I had the good chance just by chance when I was hauling grain out to the elevator and then driving

[24:42] back out to the combine where my dad was waiting with another hopper full of grain and then

[24:48] we dump it in the truck and when the truck was full the drive into the grain elevator

[24:52] and manned in.

[24:54] And on one of those return trips it was about the first time I had driven the truck by myself.

[25:00] I was probably 14, 15 years old.

[25:03] And there was a fellow walking along what we called River Road,

[25:07] which is now Highway 1806 on his way out to his wonderful,

[25:12] rich standing rock community.

[25:15] And for some reason,

[25:19] I heard a little voice,

[25:21] say it's a hot day, hot August day,

[25:23] he could probably use a ride.

[25:24] So I slowed down and opened the kick to open the passenger door and he climbed in and the story unfolded.

[26:06] off the gas.

[26:12] I slew on the gravely greed. He climbed in the cab. No, I contact me. Six miles of silence, his head held up high.

[26:26] To my question on as I heard his reply. I'm rainbow, can he rainbow? I'm a singer, you know. On the highway to heaven.

[26:38] But your ease, Luke, until I come to my drum, and the big power of soul, I'm rainbow, Kenny Rainbow, I'm a singer, you know.

[26:55] His voice held conviction, from deep within the side, deeper than ego, far beyond pride.

[27:04] Thirty years later, it came to me clear he was a keeper of culture.

[27:12] Stories to hear.

[27:15] I hid in its youth, passed over his words.

[27:20] A heart held the truth of all that it heard.

[27:25] We came to his corner, I know I was blessed as he called from the gravel.

[27:31] Into my past, I'm rainbow, cany rainbow, I'm a singer, who you know, on the highway to heaven, the journey is so, till I come to my drum, at the big powwow show, I'm rainbow, cany rainbow, I'm a singer, yeah know.

[27:59] Now I sing the stage lights, and clear prairie stars, and holy old churches, and smoke holy bars.

[28:09] I'm very, I'm very nibbers with song, I know why I'm a singer, where I belong.

[28:18] Like rainbow, can't he rainbow? I'm a singer, you know. On the highway to heaven.

[28:26] The journey to school, till it comes to my drum. At the big power show.

[28:33] Like rainbow, can't he rainbow? I'm a singer, you know.

[28:38] Like rainbow, can't he rainbow? I'm a singer, you know.

[29:06] I've had the privilege of being with many lovely Mama cows at their time of giving birth and

[29:28] quite a special privilege to be out under cold march stars.

[29:34] This is before we started caving in May, which is when we should be caving.

[29:43] But nevertheless, to be with a mama cow at that special time, in the dark, under clear, clear, starry sky.

[30:03] In the quiet,

[30:09] and then the magic happens,

[30:21] and after the mama call has cleaned the calf,

[30:26] and taught it to nurse, she lies down,

[30:33] and I may have given her some dried cat tails to lie down and smelling of mint and river and willow,

[30:48] and the calf finds its way over to that warm tummy of the mama, and slides down into the calf.

[31:00] Oh, my little dark, I'd want you who'd get to see the sun, born before,

[31:12] Chili don't buy all my my safe

[31:25] dirty farm from past the moon beyond the star

[31:33] Now you rinse

[31:39] you down in a catty

[31:49] catty

[31:54] and star

[32:00] Venus on

[32:09] in a catty

[32:25] They've been long last fall, they didn't count till ten and tall

[32:33] Put up dry in yonder shed, to make for you

[32:49] I'm not used

[32:58] to my soul,

[33:03] any doubt, and I can't

[33:25] be this new

[33:34] me down

Front Avenue Sound Sessions Ep. 7 with Chuck Suchy

Transcript