[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[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