When I was fourteen
Sanford Nicolai
spoke at a potlatch.
He looked around the Great Hall
upon many faces from different clans,
pointed out the frost-lined window
toward the white mountains
dominating our land and myth,
spoke in the slow words of an elder,
“For over a thousand years
we call them mountains K’elt’aeni.
But Indians not very smart.
Very first white man come along,
he look up at them mountains
and say, ah, Mount Sanford.
He write it down on a map.
And Mount Sanford it is today,
my people.”
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