WEBVTT

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[PAPER RUSTLING]

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I'm looking for a
particular poem.

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You know something,
there's some poems

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I haven't read for a while.

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So I'm going to read them.

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It's like taking
dogs out for a walk.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Yes, they will do that to you.

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This's called, "7
Years From Somewhere."

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The American city is Cincinnati.

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If you've ever been there,
requires no explanation.

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If you haven't, don't go.

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It takes place in North
Africa, most of it,

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but then it turns to America.

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That's why I said the American
city, the end is in America.

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"7 Years From Somewhere.

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The highway ended
and we got out."

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We is my wife and I.
"The highway ended

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and we got out and walked to
where the bridge had washed

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out, and stared down at
the river moving but clear

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to the bottom of dark rocks.

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We wondered, can we
go back into what?

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In the hills of the lower
Atlas seven years ago,

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you pointed to a
tall shepherd racing

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along the crest of a green hill.

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And then there were
four, and they came down,

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stood before us, dirty,
green-eyed Berbers,

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their faces open and laughing.

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One took my hand and
stroked the soft white palm

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with fingers as brown
and hard as wood.

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The sun was beginning
to drop below the peaks,

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and I said, Fez.

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And they answered, in a language
we hadn't heard before, Fez.

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And with gestures
of a man swimming,

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one told us to double back,
and we would find a bridge.

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We left them, standing
together in their long robes,

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waving and laughing, and went on
to Fez, Meknes, Tetouan, Ceuta,

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Spain, Paris, here.

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I have been lost, since.

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Wandering in a
bombed-out American city

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among strangers who
meant me no harm.

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Moving from the
bars to the streets,

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and coming home alone to
talk to no one or myself

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until the first
light broke the sky,

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and I could sleep a moment,
and waken in the world

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we made, and will
never call ours.

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To awaken to the smell
of bourbon and sweat,

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and another day with
no bridge, no old city

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cupped carefully in a
bowl of mountains, no one

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to take this hand, the five
perfect fingers of the soul.

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And hold it as one holds a
blue egg found in tall grasses,

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and smile and say something
that means nothing.

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That means you are, you
are, and you are home."

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[APPLAUSE]

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