WEBVTT

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In this poem, which is
called "The Holding Pond,"

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a holding pond is
a place where they

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dig a hole in the
bank next to a dam.

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The dam represents
the farthest point

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that salmon can come on their
journey upstream to spawn.

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And they make it
possible for the salmon

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to get into the pond,
and they keep them

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there in the interest
of conservation,

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as I told one of
my students today,

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until all the
salmon have arrived.

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And then they drain the
pond and take the salmon

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and spawn them artificially.

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"The Holding Pond."

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"Green riverboats launch
here below the dam,

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float downstream easy as
insects on the sliding film,

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long rods and lines held out
like water striders' feet.

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Beneath them, fish wait to find
the way up a ladder of water

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to this place, the
end of a long sea trip

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and the burning
white air of rapids.

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A schooled mass of salmon held
circling for summer weeks,

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by dry land before,
the dam behind.

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Look at them-- tired,
patient, swimming.

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A female passes, fungus-blind
on one side where

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she was touched by rocks and
the choking air, and a male,

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jaws bent beyond use, a red lure
dangling from his flank scarred

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by seals' teeth.

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Men will milk his sperm
in buckets with her eggs.

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The cat food truck
will come and leave.

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In spring, the pond will
swarm with tiny fish beginning

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the same journey.

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Can we believe in
so many deaths?

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There must be room somewhere in
space between points of light,

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like fingerlings, for
schools of fish and birds,

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for our own bodies
to move among them,

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shapes seen swimming
in clear water."

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