WEBVTT

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I've been doing I
think what I would

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call public poetry
for a long time,

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my whole professional career.

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Being poet laureate
is wonderful,

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but I'm still the same guy.

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But it's the weird thing.

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I mean, I would have gone
somewhere two weeks ago

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and it was just me, and it
was a nice visit and applause.

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And now when I'm going
back it's like whoa, neon

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and electricity.

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What did I do?

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And it's not what I did.

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It's what we did as a state.

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It's how we've all come to
this moment, how we valued it,

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how we will further it.

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And I'm glad to be at
the front of that line.

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I'm going to start by
reading a public poem.

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I'm going to alternate tonight.

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I'm just going to
read a few things.

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I'm going to alternate
between some public poems

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and some personal poems.

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I think you can have also/and.

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It doesn't have to be either/or.

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And this is a lesson
I took from the writer

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Pablo Neruda, who
talked about us

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having to be public servants.

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Said, great writers write
what they need to write,

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but they also save some time and
some space for those who cannot

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write.

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Those who have lent
themselves to you,

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the baker who baked a loaf
of bread, and you ate it,

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and you enjoyed it, but who
cannot write his own or her own

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poem.

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If you enjoyed that bread,
you will write that poem.

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That's an important
thing to remember

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that as a public servant,
it doesn't matter

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if you work at the water
service, light, or gas company,

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or wherever, you're
going to help somebody.

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And I want to start by reading
this particular poem which

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I think is a great
start for us all.

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This is called, "Where
the Possible is Near."

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"We have arrived in our
1,000 different ways.

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We will leave to our 1,000
different destinations.

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But for this moment, we
stand happily as one.

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Let this hour be
to good purpose,

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that it push us in our 1,000
directions well-served full

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because of this good
which is simple enough.

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Gathering in troubled
times is a grace.

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A time in which all of us are
moved to go forward to do what

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this day will ask of us.

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I know all of you only a little,
but we are not strangers.

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Who wants the same
things I want.

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You are some part of me.

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Who eats the same bread.

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Who wants the good that I want.

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I know you.

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Do good, we say.

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Champion what is right.

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That is why we are
here gathered to help.

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Keep open the pages of
a book and you will have

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closed the doors of a prison.

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What we do matters.

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What actions we let
speak for us matter.

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You and I, we are cousins
by intent if not family.

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We are siblings by
effort if not upbringing.

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We are in a word, each
other, all of us here today.

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What remains is the covenant
of a confluent moment.

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An hour in which we see
the possible as the near.

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Close enough to
make it our own."

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