WEBVTT

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I'd like to read the ending
of an essay about elephants.

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It's just so-- [SNIFFLES] it
all goes into all the trauma

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that elephants are
suffering as you all know.

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Thanks, Hannah.

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[LAUGHTER]

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The ubiquitous Hannah, always
there when you need her.

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A lot of you know I curated an
exhibit at the Jacksonville zoo

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and got to tour some
exhibits at other zoos

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where poets had put--

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poetry in along with the
traditional kinds of science,

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interpretive
materials at the zoos.

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When I was visiting the poetry
installation at Little Rock,

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I had this great
little experience

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meeting a couple of elephants.

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I'm honored to say I met two
elephants at the Little Rock

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Zoo.

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I was touring the
poetry installation

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and enjoying the
behind the scenes talk

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of educators and
keepers that had

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become such a lovely part of
my experience on the project.

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My favorite keeper
story from another zoo

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was one about an orangutan
that escaped his enclosure.

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He was so accustomed to human
behavior that when he got out,

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he just stood around
on the sidewalk,

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putting his arm around people,
and posing for photographs.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Would you like to
meet the elephants?"

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My Little Rock host asked.

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"Sure," I replied, not
knowing what to expect.

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We entered the night quarters,
an empty, cement-floored barn

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with airy compartments
lined with huge steel bars,

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a car-sized
cylindrical red bristle

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brush had been mounted
vertically on one of the bars.

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The brush from a street sweeper,
repurposed as an elephant

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back scratcher.

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The keeper was hosing down
the floor and steel pillars.

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"Sorry," he said, "it really
stinks in here today."

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He just completed
the weekly bleaching

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so the place smelled
like a swimming pool.

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No elephants in sight.

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Can she meet the girls?

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The keeper was a
tall, quiet, wiry man

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with white hair, wire glasses,
khaki pants, and shirt.

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When he heard I
was from Arizona,

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he told me he was a
hiker and we talked

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about our favorite sites.

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He let us out through
the barn-sized doorway

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to the dusty yard.

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The two elephants were at
the far end of the yard,

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under a spot of shade, lazing.

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He called them over.

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What did he say?

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Move on, or move along,
something like that.

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He said it quietly.

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Their heads lifted and they
joined us, two Asian elephants

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walking over like
slow, golden retrievers

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at the sound of his voice.

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And there we stood.

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Three people, flanked by two
elephants just hanging out

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like a bunch of farmhands,
talking in the outdoors.

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I stroked their creased leather
trunks and knobby brows,

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one snuffed at my sneaker
with its nostrils,

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the two pink hollows at the
tip of the trunk opening

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into the warm, wet mystery
of the Beast's interior.

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I stood face to face
with one of them.

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The elephant's eyelashes long
as my thumb, black, shiny, fine.

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Her trunk was pink with
gray freckles, the skin,

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dry leather, the
eyes, balmy and deep.

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I was surprised by the toenails,
the feet, so stump-like.

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Do their toenails need care?

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They get a pedicure
every two weeks.

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Most elephants that
die in captivity,

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it's from infections in the
foot that spread to the body.

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They have bowling pins.

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One elephant has
learned to bowl.

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They have beer kegs to toss.

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They have a huge,
black ball to roll.

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It's something that's used to
blow through an oil pipeline

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to clean it.

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It's only used
once, costs $8,000,

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then is donated here
for elephant enrichment.

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The keeper tells me that
they are so smart it's

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hard to keep them interested.

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He's always looking
for a new toy or task.

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He hides fruit for them to
find, builds a basket up high

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in the enclosure so they
have to work for food.

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One has a thick scar
on her rear ankle.

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What's her story?

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They had found a packing slip
in her crate when she arrived.

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She had been a circus
elephant, shipped

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to New York City in 1951.

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She must have been kept
chained in her crate

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when she wasn't in
the circus ring.

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When she got here
to Little Rock,

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she was afraid of
everything-- the little kids,

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zoo's train, the peacocks.

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The other elephant
had been purchased

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from a logging camp in India,
where she'd been employed.

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The circus elephants
were 61 years old.

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The circus elephant
was 61 years old.

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The laborer, a
few years younger.

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Their whole lives were
spent in human company

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and this was the
kindest chapter.

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Each morning before
the zoo opens,

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they get to take a walk
through the whole place.

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A purist would want them
to be free of the barn,

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the dusty paddock,
the steel bars,

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and yet these elephants have
lived interesting and difficult

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lives.

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Zoo people like to
refer to their animals

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as ambassadors from the wild.

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These two are more
like refugees.

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Do they understand
a lot of words?

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About 100.

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They nudge forward,
but ever so gently.

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They want to go
inside for water.

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They inch forward, never shove.

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What kindness has come to them,
has made them calm and patient.

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I felt that somehow
they knew what

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I was saying with my hands,
which stroked, and stroked them

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while we talked.

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"What do you think
about animal emotions?"

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I asked "You know,
how people say

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they have such feelings
of affection and grief?"

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"They know right away what
you feel," said the keeper.

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A man who knows these two
individuals as well as I

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know any of my friends.

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Humans used to be that way.

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But we've lost it.

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