WEBVTT

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I'm going to end with this
poem called, "Promise."

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Actually it's a song, I
have a five member band

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called Poetic Justice.

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We play this one, but
they're not here with me.

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It's called, "Promise," and
it's really nice to be here,

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I don't have to
explain the monsoon

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storms, or the Catalinas,
or the Rincons.

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But I wrote this
poem, I started on it

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before when my
daughter was in labor.

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And because of this whole
process that took three or four

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days to go through,
I finished the poem,

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I had all this time to work
on this, to be with her,

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and then I was
working on this poem.

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So this is called, "Promise."

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"The guardians of dusk blow
fire from the rincones as clouds

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confer over the Catalinas in
the fading tracks of humans.

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I interpret the blur of red
as female rain tomorrow,

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or the child born with
the blessings of animals

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who will always protect her.

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I am always amazed at
the skill of rain clouds

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who outline the weave
of human density.

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Crickets memorize the
chance event with rain songs

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they have practiced
for centuries.

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I am recreated by that language.

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Their predictions are always
true, and as beautiful

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as a swirl of flowers
drinking rain.

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I see the moon as I have never
seen the moon, a half shell,

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just large enough
for a cradle board,

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and the child who takes part
in the dance of evolution,

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as seen in the
procession of tadpoles,

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to humans painting
the walls with wishes.

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From the moon we
all look the same.

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In two days the
girl will be born

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and nothing will
ever look the same.

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I knew the monsoon clouds
were talking about it as they

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softened the speed of light.

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Cedar smoke in a prayer house
constructed in the last century

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pervades my memory.

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Prayer lingers in
the ancestral chain.

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You can manipulate words to
turn departure into aperture,

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but you cannot figure
the velocity of love,

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and how it enters
every equation.

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It's related to the calculation
of the speed of light,

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and how light prevails.

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And then the evening
star nods her head.

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Nearby, a lone jet ascending.

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I understand how light prevails.

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And when she was born it rained.

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Everything came true the
way it was promised."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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