this project is the result of a six-month residency as the Bears Ears Artist in Residence, sponsored by Utah Diné Bikéyah

Follow me to the wash, its bed of smoothed earth. Whatever coats you are wearing, leave them; it is warm here. We will fold them at the feet of redrock and sage, under the shade of greasewood, and the song of a canyon wren.

As the trail deepens and walls grow, I will tell you simply how my story changed. Each word will be waves in the air around us, curving off swept rock and falling into you. This word, that word, and the silence in between.

How deep will you let them go?

The only body here will be mine.

There are things to acknowledge.

Whoever is rooted, will not uproot.

Find the stories never slid onto your desk.

*content warning: video references genocide of Indigenous communities

See lithified structures for what they are:

an accumulation.

*content warning: video chronicles settler-colonial racial violence

Here is my prayer.

Stone to dust, dust to stone.