WEBVTT

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This poem is called
"Directions to the Nomad."

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And it was-- where
I live in Missoula

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is a valley just a little
ways out of Missoula

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called the Rattlesnake.

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And down below us used to be
the old County Poor House.

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And that had since
been transformed

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into the Opportunity School.

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Which is not much
of an opportunity

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but it was for
retarded children.

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But they were tearing it down.

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It's a very old building
and made out of bricks.

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Which is unusual in Montana.

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Everything here is
made out of bricks.

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So, you have to appreciate
how unusual is to find a brick

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building in Montana.

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But this was one and this guy
came around in his dump truck

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and he asked me which way
to the opportunity school.

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And I gave him directions.

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I don't know if there was really
any opportunity there or not.

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But he just wanted the bricks
he didn't care if there wasn't.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So, I gave him directions and
went back and wrote this poem.

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It's called "Directions
to the Nomad."

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Pass the school and down
this little incline.

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You can't miss it.

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Tons of bricks and babies
blue from the waist down.

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Their heads are cheese
and loll as though bricks

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became their brains.

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What's that, the noble savage?

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He's around.

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Spooked and colored
by the fish he eats.

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Red for rainbow,
blue for the moon.

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He instructs stars but
only to the thinnest wolf.

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When you get there, tell the
mad decaying creep we miss him.

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We never meant it.

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He'll treat you right.

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Show you poems the black
bear couldn't dream.

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One more thing, if
he tries to teach you

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mountains or whisper imagined
love to the tamarack,

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tell him you adore him.

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Then get the hell out, fast.

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