I once heard Joy Harjo speak on a panel about history and poetry. She sat quietly for much of it. The other panelists said a lot of things. Harjo remained the only quiet one. Her quiet had a straight back. And then she interrupted one of the panelists and said something like, “That reminds me of the time…” and she spoke of a fellow Native American professor who committed suicide near the end of one of the years, and how he must have been hurting and isolated, but not many people spoke about that, or spoke about his death or their loss when he died. And she said she was at home one day and she noticed a black thread or string floating in the window, and she observed it for a while until she realized that that black string was grief. The grief of the professor, the grief of the students, her own grief, the grief of silence, a historical grief, and that she knew that it was her job to take that thread and put it somewhere, weave it into the larger tapestry (she made a gesture, then, as if that tapestry were just above her head). She said it was her job to put that grief in its place, or else someone else would be out walking and just walk right into it, without knowing what it was they’d walked into and inherited. The danger of that. And that is all I remember from all of the things that were said that entire day.