Cathie Ryan In My Tribe
In Monument Valley we ride
Myself and my Navajo guide
I'm moved by the majesty
that lives here in this place
His native home,
the dry desert of his race
I don't know these mesas or these lands
Like the fields my mother plowed beside her dad
And I hold every story that her father told to me
As dear as myths of the Anasazi
We ride on and sing our peoples' songs
From roots that run as deep as they do long
And although I was born here and raised in this nation
The blood is strong in the first generation
My grandmother swept a dirt floor
As the Navajo did here before
Kayenta and Kerry may be wide water apart
But we're alike in the deep core of the heart
I've seen the sun set at The Sun's Eye
Left an echo in The Hogan nearby
A song of my people that my mother gave to me
In my tribe music is blood memory
Music is blood memory
