WEBVTT

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This poem is called
"A Volcano in Kyushu."

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Now, Kyushu is the big
southern island of Japan.

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It has an enormous--

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it's virtually a
volcanic construction.

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It has an enormous
caldera in the center,

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and in the middle of the
caldera is an active cone called

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Mount Aso, where Japanese
people like to go sightseeing.

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Because it doesn't
look like Japan there,

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it looks like the West.

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I mean, it looks like Nevada
or something, sort of blasted.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Also, as it happens,
Nagasaki is in Kyushu,

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which was the second city
to be hit by an atom bomb.

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And when you're traveling around
in those parts, occasionally,

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you see middle-aged
people with keloids,

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atomic radiation burn
scars that don't go away

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on their faces or bodies.

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So this is based
on a little trip

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that I took when we
went to Mount Aso.

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"Mount Aso, uplands, horses,
rimrock, the sightseeing buses

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crammed to view bare
rock, brown grass, space,

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sulphury cliffs, streaked snow.

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Whiffing the fumaroles,
a noseless, shiny,

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mouth-twisted middle-aged man.

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Blue jeans, check
shirt, silver buckle.

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J. Robert Oppenheimer,
20 years ago

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watching the bulldozers tearing
down pines at Los Alamos."

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