WEBVTT

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I'm going to read some poems
from a couple of books.

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And I was talking at
dinner about a great-uncle

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of mine named
Carlos, who I thought

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was the most wonderful
man in the world.

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I told that to my Aunt Norma.

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She almost had a heart attack.

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She told me the truth.

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And I want to read this
tonight because I was watching

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Ofelia's hair, which
this long, beautiful hair

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that my grandmother
used to have.

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This poem is called
"Refugio's Hair."

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And this is the story
of my grandmother.

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Her name was Refugio.

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"In the old days of our
family, my grandmother

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was a young woman whose hair
was as long as the river.

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She lived with her
sisters on the ranch,

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La Calera, The Land of the
Lime, and her days were happy.

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But her uncle Carlos
lived there too.

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Carlos, whose soul had
the edge of a knife.

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One day, to teach
her to ride a horse,

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he made her climb onto
the fastest one, bareback,

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and sit there, as he held
its long face in his arms.

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And then he did the
unspeakable deed for which

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he would always be remembered.

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He called for the
handsome baby, Pirrín,

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and he placed that
child in her arms.

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With that picture of a
Madonna on horseback,

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he slapped the shank of
the horse's rear leg.

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The horse did what a
horse must, racing full

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toward the bright horizon.

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But first that horse ran under
the álamo trees to rid its back

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of this unfair weight,
this woman full of tears,

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and this baby full of love.

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When they reached the
trees and went under,

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my grandmother's hair,
which had trailed her,

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equal in its
magnificence to the tail

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of the horse, that hair rose
up and flew into the branches

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as if it were a thousand arms,
all of them trying to save her.

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The horse ran off and
left her, the baby still

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in her arms, the two of
them hanging from her hair.

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The baby looked only
at her and did not cry,

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so steady was her cradle.

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Her sisters came
running to save them,

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but the hair would not let go.

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From its fear, it held on,
and had to be cut, all of it,

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from her head.

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From that day on, my
grandmother wore her hair short,

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like a scream.

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But it was long, like
a river, in her sleep."

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[APPLAUSE]

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