WEBVTT

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One of the neighbors
that we had in California

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was a biologist of some sort.

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And I always find
scientists so fascinating I

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suppose because I am so ignorant
of many of the sciences.

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And so I do enjoy talking
to them, hiking with them

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and such.

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And this man one day
told me that he'd

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read an article that
if you take a plant

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and put it in a
completely dark room,

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it will still move its
leaves in the morning

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as if the sunlight was
coming, reacting to sunlight

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as if the plant had a memory,
the time clock built into it.

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That's a pretty strange
idea at least it was to me.

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And I was quite
impressed with that.

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Of course, in connection with
this in Southern California,

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Southern California is
quite an interesting place

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if not frightening.

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They mow down orange groves
like you might cut your lawn

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and put up some rather
atrocious ticky tacky houses

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in their places.

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And that's rather hard to take.

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It's called "Compendium
for Southern California."

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What matters is the distance,
the space through the trees.

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But here at 8 o'clock
the bodily functions

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echo from cubicle to cubicle.

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Daily the groves are shorn
and buildings rise, teeth

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sewn in the rut of the blade.

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Morning collapse is a stab
deer on the threshold.

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We struggle for our
clothes, our own garments

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that allow some room
against the public wheel.

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With our own blood and
ashes across our foreheads

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enter the street.

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Here every gesture becomes
a risk for the heart and act

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of survival.

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We keep the chambers close.

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Even in total darkness
the roots eye the seasons,

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the plants move their
leaves up and down.

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