WEBVTT

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Thank you very much.

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I'm going to start out tonight
without wasting much time.

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The way I usually do my
readings is I read a poem to--

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or rather for the men and
women who are in prisons today.

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So I'd like to start out
with one right away, OK?

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It's called Cloudy Day.

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It is windy today.

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A wall of wind crashes
against, windows

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clunk against iron
frames as wind swings

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past broken glass and
seethes like a frightened

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cat and empty spaces
of the cell block.

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In the exercise yard, we
sat huddled in our jackets,

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on our haunches
against the fence.

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And the wind carried our
words over the fence,

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while the vigilant
guard on the tower

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held his cap at the sudden gust.

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I could see the main
tower from where I sat.

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And the wind in my face
gave me the feeling

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I could grasp the tower
like a corn stalk,

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and snap it from
its roots of rock.

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The wind plays it like a flute,
this hollow chute of rock.

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The brim girded with
barbed wire with a guard

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sitting there also,
listening intently

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to the sounds as clouds cover
the sun I thought of the day

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I was coming to prison, in
the backseat of a police car.

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Hands and ankles chained,
the policeman pointed,

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see that big water tank?

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The big silver one
out there sticking up?

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That's the prison.

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And here I am.

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I cannot believe it.

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Sometimes it is such
a dream, a dream,

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where I stand up in the
face of the wind like now.

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It blows at my prison jacket and
my eyelids flicker a little bit

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while I stare disbelieving.

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The third day of
spring and four years

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later, I can tell you
how a man can endure,

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how a man can
become so cruel, how

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he can die, or become so cold.

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I can tell you this.

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I have seen it every
day, every day,

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and still I am strong enough to
love you, love myself, and feel

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good.

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Even as the Earth
shakes and trembles

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and I have not a
thing to my name,

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I feel as if I've
got everything.

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Everything.

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That's for my
brothers and sisters.