WEBVTT

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This next poem is an
address to reason.

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Reason used to be
in good status,

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but since the
romantic poets, it's

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often attacked as being
partial bloodless inhuman.

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But it only takes
listening to a few debates

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on television during
election cycle

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to realize it's a very
precious and rare commodity,

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and it should be venerated.

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"To reason-- you
don't deserve to be

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blamed for the wrongs
done in your name

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anymore than God or
country ought to be blamed,

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or peace or freedom.

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You deserve to be
praised for bringing

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to all who serve you sincerely
the truth beyond the senses.

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For you, it's obvious that
the hungry of Madagascar

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are just as needy as
the hungry at home.

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And when the issues
are local, you're

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the one determined to
give all sides a hearing.

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It's you that the public meeting
about the wisdom of damming

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the river who were open
both to the call of cities

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downriver for flood
protection and to the protest

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the villages that may soon
be turned into lake bed.

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And as you deliberate,
you don't assume

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that the needs of the
many trump the rights

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of the few, that justice is
simply a matter of numbers.

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You don't assume the village
plan for the dispossessed

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on higher ground is
superior to the old

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because it's brick, not
clapboard with wider streets.

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New and old, grand and modest--

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these are the same
before your law.

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If Paris is on your list
of places worth visiting,

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so is a small provincial town of
Arles, home of a Roman theater

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that's still standing.

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For you, an ancient place,
just as likely as one

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written this morning
to be relevant.

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Though its message may
need more deciphering,

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you may not be
sure what's implied

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when the hero in serving one
God runs afoul of another

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just as imposing.

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You may not be sure what it
meant to its earliest audience,

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but you resist assuming the
question can't be answered.

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Let's see, you say, if
under different names

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two truths we honor
are in contention,

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and only one can
be lived today."

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