WEBVTT

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This is a poem that
goes back to Mexico.

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I lived in a fairly small
village for some time,

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and it was primarily
a fishing village.

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At least, that was a
large part of the economy.

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Most people did not make
a very good living at it,

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and it was a poor village.

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It's a poem called "The
Fish/Lago Chapala."

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It's in three small sections.

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I should explain just
a bit some allusions

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at the end of the poem.

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Very often, around
the edges of the lake,

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or when you dug for wells
or things of this sort,

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people would turn up a very
small clay pot, sometimes

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the size of a thimble.

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And they were called
locally tear pots.

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And the story was that
the tribes of Indians who

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had lived around the lake had
used those pots to catch either

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a teardrop or they
slice their earlobe

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with a piece of obsidian
and caught a drop of blood

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and gave it to the
lake, I suppose

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for the very good reason that
the lake was to give back.

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Any rate, there is a
kind of allusion to that

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at the end of the poem,
or coming back to that.

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"The Fish/Lago Chapala."

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Sunrise, the tiny, almost
transparent fish of Chapala

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drawn in nets.

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All afternoon, shining and
steaming on the roadsides,

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scattered or in small mounds
like fingers of broken glass.

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At nightfall, the dog licks
me with his mouth of fish.

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The children's hair is spangled
with the stars of fish.

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Our shoes darkened in
their skins of fish.

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This morning, a
procession on the road,

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a priest, four men
lugging a small

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painted coffin, some
women in dark shawls.

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Morning of heat and
thin smoke on the hills,

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mourning of one less child.

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The women washed it.

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The priest wrapped
it in incense.

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The fields arose and
blessed it with dust.

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A child in a blue box enters the
earth in a fragrance of fish.

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The land was mesquite,
prickly pear, rock.

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He saw his face in the water.

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Into a tiny bowl shaped
like a black nut,

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he let fall one tear,
one drop of blood,

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and cast it to the lake.

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This happened so long ago.

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The tear became a fish.

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The drop of blood became a fish.

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We eat the harvest every day."

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