WEBVTT

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And this is another one.

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This is a poem called
"Shooting the Wren."

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There's a reference in
it to the Seven Sisters.

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I come from the Chumash Nation
in Santa Barbara in California,

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and there is a story about the
Pleiades, the Seven Sisters,

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about how the tribe came
down from the Pleiades,

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from the Seven Sisters
and descended to Earth.

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So that's the
reference in the poem

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and also about the California
Indians in the poem.

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Also, shooting the wren--

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shooting the wren comes from
an old, ancient rite that still

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practiced in the Celtic Isles.

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It's still practiced
in the Isle of Man.

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Shooting the wren
happens January 2,

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and what they actually do
is go out and shoot a wren.

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There's like a contest
for the first person

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to shoot the first
wren of the season.

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It's like a winter, beginning
of spring kind of ritual.

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So they shoot the wren, and
then they tie it up on a cross,

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on a wooden cross.

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And then they parade around
the village with the wren,

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and then they have all these
festivities and everything.

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Well, in the last 50 years,
the shooting the wren

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has sort of changed
over to be sort

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of this playful battle
between the sexes

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so that they have
this contest to see

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who shoots the first
wren of the season

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and if it's a male or a female.

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And if a woman is
the first person

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to shoot the wren,
then from then

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on, for this three-day
feast and festival,

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all of the men of
the village have

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to cater and feed the women.

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And they're sort of like
the slaves of the women

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for the rest of this festival.

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So there's this playful trying
to shoot the wren first,

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and when you really think about
it, it's like, oh, poor wren.

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Wrens aren't that big, anyway.

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It's a pretty barbaric
custom, but that's

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what's shooting the wren is.

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It doesn't have much
to do with this poem,

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but I thought you might
want to know about shooting

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the wren in the Isle of Man.

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"Shooting the Wren."

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"He sends trophies
from Sunday's kill,

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a china pheasant, feathers
despicable starling coal,

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backs the color
of Chilean copper.

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They shimmer in the distance,
a beautiful expectancy

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of only 2.2 years,
so who could feel bad

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about the downing
of another rooster?

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The species about wiped out
for the hats of the '30s

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are plentiful game now.

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They succumb to harsh winters,
feral cats, coyotes, wild dogs,

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and farmers.

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The hens preen in
the spattered leaves.

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A speckle of blood, nearly
unnoticed, backs the wolf-down,

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and at the quill's tip, a
dark tangling in the fluff

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of a ringneck's queue.

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They gleam iridescence, what
was more precious than gold

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to an extinguished race.

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I walk among the
ghosts of history,

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the agony of the tortured
condemned to their barracks

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of serene mustard slopes.

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In California-- chinaberry,
manzanita, wild boar

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imported from Europe.

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My ancestors leached acorns,
hollowed granite at riverbeds

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with kindness, kneading
and a steady procession.

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My grandmother knew only
one constellation, the Seven

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Sisters, and she would ask
them to help her remember

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her grandmother's story of
how they descended to Earth

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from a fusion of difference.

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But it's an unremembered
song cut off

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at slavery's beck and call.

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Her 11-year-old hands deadened
at the hard sale of cash,

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unlikely, untutored, caring.

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She taught me the
rights of a hunter

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are inalienable, spinning
the head of a chicken.

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It's true.

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We are the fallen
angels return to teach

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the tenderness of hands,
the tough choice of heart.

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My grandmother's heart
was pure as topaz.

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She knew what gives
out comes back quantum.

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She taught her babies patience
with the eye of a feather

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smudged with honey.

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A day's work could get done as
the plume was passed from hand

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to hand in the
brilliance of sunlight,

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bright as it is now as I finger
the fray and nap of this gift.

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You are of the tender heart.

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I know nothing of your
hands but [AUDIO OUT],,

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what graphite is
bound between horizons

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of blue, what nature of
carbon skin of dead birds

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coats the page.

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It is true.

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You can buy the lean
meat of plucked birds.

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You can buy fresh
hens at the market,

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quail the color of
chardonnay grapes.

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You have reservations
where you can purchase

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the tokens of the dead.

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They bear their own
speeches, these silent ones

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trading the winds, their
own histories and stories.

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Tell me a few.

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Give it 2.2 years
to come to life

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and tell a tale of triggers
and steel, of tumblers

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and the slut peg of
the empty chamber.

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Mail me a silver bullet from
the mountains of your memory.

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Your trophies bear
witness to gunfire

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in the numbed trees of
eternity's forests, of winter

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in the eastern plains, while
I fashion these feathers

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into the fragile
art of my tribe.

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I will wear them when
the black of white

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never dies, this gift of
intent woven in a silent bead.

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I'll let it blow
through my matted locks,

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the weight of a kiss.

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What you kill I will pray for.

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What you let live
we will praise.

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We will ignore it and eat."

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