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I thought a place to start
would be with the poem that was

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printed in the --

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in the booklet of the
poetry series this year.

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This is a poem
called "Jatun Sacha,"

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which is the name of a botanical
reserve in the Ecuadorian

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Amazon.

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I was there because one of
my sons was working there.

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And sits on the Rio Napo river
outside the village of Tena

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in a region that's
almost entirely Quechan.

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And during my stay there, one
of the amazing things to me

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was people singing and this is
the poem about the Jatun Sacha.

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"First, she was singing,
then it was a gold thing

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her singing and her
bending, she was singing

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and a gold thing was
selving, it was a ringing

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before there was a bell.

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Before there was a bell, there
was the bell, notwithstanding,

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standing or sitting sometimes
at night or in the day when they

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worked they hummed, and
made their voices high,

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and made sounds.

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It was the ringing they hadn't
heard yet singing, though they

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had heard it ringing.

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When Casamiro's daughter
went to the river

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and picked arum leaves, and wet
them, and rubbed them together,

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they made the one sweet
note that was the ringing.

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It was the one note cry
of a bee-eating bird

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with pale blue crest.

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And when the first one made
the ringing with the arum

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leaves and the others heard
that the arum leaves were

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the bee-eating bird, they
laughed, their laughter rang.

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And the young guys
who worked metal,

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they liked it best at
night when the iron glowed,

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and the sparks showered
down, and he struck metal

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against metal in the glowing.

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He fashioned when he fashioned
for adornment or for praying

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or for killing.

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And he knew the made
things from the ringing,

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which was the arum leaves
and the sounds made in love

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and the bee-eating
bird and the humming.

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She sang like that, something
of keening and something

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of laughing, Earth cries,
and a gold thing ringing."

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