WEBVTT

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Last poem I'll read
is about a woman

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who burned up in
a fire two doors

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from our house in
Portland, Christmas 1968.

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In the poem, which I
couldn't get together

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for about two
years, I use a quote

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from natural history magazine
which brought the experience

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together for me describing
the collapsed star

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or black hole-- it's an
astronomical phenomenon.

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A star which has
condensed so that it's

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so heavy that the light
can't escape its gravity.

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And if you look at
it, you see nothing.

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If you shine light on it, the
light would disappear into it.

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That quote is interwoven
with my own writing in this.

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Poem begins by mentioning
an astrologer who

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forecast this event three years
ahead of time, to the week--

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"Collapsars."

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"The problem with
black holes is, she

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would see if I had a problem.

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She read my birth,
and I grew cold.

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The chart held a dark
time for a near woman

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in the snow stars of Christmas.

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No, I said, tragedies
like that, there is no way

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to see them or hear them.

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As one hears even in sleep a
man shouting fire in the street.

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There are stars that have
collapsed, suffered what

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even hard winter doesn't bring.

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Snow fallen between houses like
a body between bed and door.

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Inhaling then choking
is called an implosion.

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Without realizing what
happens, you reach intensity.

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The matter in such
stars has been squashed

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together like a victim
of a fire carried down

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in a bag, half size, but
then again and again, fire

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after fire, into forms
unknown on earth,

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because our knowledge has
made us rare and cold.

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How can I look at it?

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Matter so dense its
gravitational field

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prevents any kind of
radiation from escaping.

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I have kept my body
heat in heavy sweaters

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and weather stripping while
Earth's night grows colder

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and what was burned freezes.

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From that body could
a soul be escaping?

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You couldn't see one if
it was right next to you.

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Miss Nugent was like that.

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She must have walked right
by our house twice a day.

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I never saw her, never
saw her take the steps

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one by one up to her
apartment after work

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and switch on the light.

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If you shone a light
on it today in the noon

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after the fire broke out, like
the sun's own rooster rising

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from her window way too early
in the dark holiday morning,

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licking up story
after story, the light

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would simply disappear like
a Christmas present we missed

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and sifted the ashes for--

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thrown away with its
wrapping into the black hole.

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And what spark
doesn't desire all?

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And what kind of star
visited a woman that night?

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35 of a secretary's
passions, 98.6."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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