WEBVTT

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And this next one
is called "Christmas

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Comes to Moccasin Flat".

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Moccasin Flat is a suburb
of Browning, Montana,

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and it's not an upper
middle class place at all.

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And it's pretty much gone now.

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They've since built-- torn
down all the shacks and built

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government housing--

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the prefabricated jobs.

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But when I was
growing up there, it

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was always an interesting
place to walk around.

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You could always
find a fight there

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or find a dog if
you were looking

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for a dog or just anything.

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It was a good place in a way.

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"Christmas comes like this--

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wise men unhurried,
candles bought on credit,

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poor price for calves, warriors
face down in wine sleep.

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Winds cheat to pull
heat from smoke.

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Friends sit in chinked cabins,
stare out plastic windows

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and wait for commodities.

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Charlie Blackbird, 20
miles from church and bar,

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stabs his fire with flint.

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When drunks drain
radiators for love or need,

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chiefs eat snow and
talk of change, an urge

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to laugh pounding their ribs.

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Elk play games in high country.

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Medicine woman, clay
pipe and twist tobacco,

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calls each blizzard by name and
predicts 5 o'clock by spitting

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at her television.

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Children lean into her
breath to beg a story.

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Something about
honor and passion,

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warriors back with
meat and song.

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A peculiar evening star,
quick vision of birth.

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Blackbird feeds his fire.

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Outside, a quick 30 below."

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