WEBVTT

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In this series, I
responded to Calgary

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with a poem called "Calgary,"
which I'll read now.

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Calgary, in the
far west distance,

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the lids of mountains,
presumably the Rockies,

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props for northern lights.

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Into them, a knife way, highway
one, umbilical of this town.

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Calgary, born by
mistake, wind built,

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dumped at the foot of the hills.

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Eroded down to there,
overgrown with grass,

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festooned with insects,
roamed by prairie chickens,

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supporting life, people,
Indians, then oilmen,

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football players, civil defense
army police with flashlights,

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professors, tax men, lawyers,
mayors, faces flashing

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in the northern lights.

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Cutting themselves to
pieces with apartments,

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building, sand on sand eroding,
pinched against the wind,

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hopeless on the wrong
side of the mountains, web

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footed for the sea,
all these, all these.

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A boxed social of a city,
hoax on dumbfounded prairie

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chickens, lost belly button
of the Canadian West.

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