WEBVTT

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And I think I'm going to
close with just two more.

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This book follows
a journey not just

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from Africa through Europe,
through this continent,

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but very much from South to
North and from East to West.

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And so it comes to
meditate upon what

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the history of this country
was, the notion of the pioneers,

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the quest for riches of
the spiritual salvation

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comes of delusion that
that quest brought about it

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like a cloud of flies around
the heads of those who

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are making their way westward.

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Gold.

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This poem is called "Wilderness
and the American Mind."

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In fact, Ted, isn't it the
name of the great classic book

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of American scholarship?

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I think, Wilderness
of the American Mind?

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I must have just taken
it from that book.

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Anyway, liked the title.

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"What is the
structure of a curse?

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Some movement, revolution,
and you saw it there.

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A light on the road in place of
knowing, then knowing for sure.

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The ancestors have never
been more agitated,

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arms and legs hung out to dry,
fingers testing surface tension

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on the mounds.

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Fearful, covetous, we
made our way across.

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Some gates swung open and
we broke the others down.

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The land-to-body ratio,
you can't have both.

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We said it before
the wind took hold.

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Afraid to hurt,
afraid to suffer more.

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What would it mean
to stay alive?

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I could have sworn
there was a map.

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Soon after we arrived,
I read the stories

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of true heartlessness.

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Too simple to have said
they had no way to go.

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New forms of poverty,
a show of force.

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Why should the tongue
swell up that way?

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The kid rebuilt the
fire with bones.

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We paid him out in kind.

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