WEBVTT

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I've been accused
in the past of--

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well, I don't know, but--

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of being political.

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So I might as well
get into that.

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OK, here's one.

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This one's called "Tomás
Lucero," a letter.

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Querido Tomás Lucero, "I wept
when the police escorted you

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on the train.

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For years, when the
train darkly whipped

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across the llano at
midnight shuttering my cot,

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trembling ground was your voice
still mourning your brother

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killed in your
yard by the police.

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I wept when your small son was
engulfed in a blast of steam.

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As the Santa Fe
train chugged off,

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he stood there choking,
breast heaving with tears,

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a dark, small shadow
in ghostly smoke.

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But you have given
me hope, Tomás.

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I knew you were
not a strong man.

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When you knelt clutching
your bloody brother

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in your front yard
across from my house,

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I saw how you wept,
begging the blood back,

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the bullet holes healed, the
terrible nightmare erased.

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The dark, cloudy features
of your face were an omen.

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You looked up at the policeman,
took your brother's gun,

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and shot him.

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Because of that
one tragic moment,

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you had to become
who you were not.

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Sniff air like a
hunted coyote, try

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to charm the moon
to be your friend.

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Because now hunted,
you held alien weight

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of your brother's gun
in your hand instead

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of your son's little body.

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Now hunted, Earth became
your bed, arroyos your paths,

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instead of your wife's arms.

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Now hunted, you rest on canyon
rockrim that overlooks Tajíque.

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You must have wept
for a return--

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just to sit on your
porch, watch your children

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playing in the yard as you scold
your oldest son for trampling

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chili plants in the garden.

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We sent you food,
and every day, I

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have walked to your house to
see how your family is doing.

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When the police
came to ask of you,

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we shook our heads with silence
and asked them, please leave.

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And when you were
finally caught,

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I looked into your
son's face again,

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watching you embark
the train for prison.

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I saw the most beautiful,
inexpressible love

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and adoration burst and effuse
over his sorrowful face.

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And then months after,
a mysterious nobility

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filled his eyes.

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Two dark wounds bleeding
your image on everything

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they looked on.

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Tomás, never have I seen
anything as beautiful, Tomás,

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as your son who was
becoming a man."

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[APPLAUSE]

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