WEBVTT

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I couldn't have written
that poem I think

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if I didn't live in Montana.

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I think the bison might
be my spirit animal.

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The next one "Raptor" remembers
the iconic Western birds,

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eagles and hawks and ospreys.

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And it serves as a kind
of Ars Poetica, which

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is an artistic
statement of purpose.

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As I watch these birds
from my study window

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as they were trying to
capture a fish or a mouse

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I am trying to capture an idea.

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"Raptor".

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Not to be a songbird
or a cockatoo.

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Not to be a Robin
or a dove or a jay.

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Nothing with either
down or pale feathers.

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But a raptor, eagle or hawk.

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The kind that swoops down
to snatch a flapping trout.

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To live in high prickly
trees and navigate rock

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walled canyons.

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Not to be a Starling, not
a Wren, not loon or Oriole

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but a fierce bird
with night vision.

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Not to perch on the clothesline
or to nibble table crumbs.

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Not to creep through underbrush
or flutter in honeysuckle.

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Not to make tiny forked tracks.

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Not to have frantic wing beats
or mournful clucks or warbles.

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To have the high
view, the panorama.

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And eyes like
headlights and claws

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with carapace a hard granite
beak to split the seeds

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and broadcast them.

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