WEBVTT

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I wanted to take just a
second and thank everybody

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for being here tonight.

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And it makes me
so happy to think

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about how many
poetry readings there

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are, or just readings
in general happening all

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over the world at this moment.

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Which means that people
are sort of, like,

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have put their cell phones
away and their Facebook

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and their laptops away and are
really listening to something.

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And I feel like,
when I was listening

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to you read, Francine,
it sort of just like,

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that kind of listening
really makes me

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feel so alive and so present.

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So thank you so much for doing
that here with us tonight.

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And I wanted to thank everybody
here at the Poetry Center.

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Tyler and Hannah and
Julie and Cybele and--

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I feel like I just
pronounced your name wrong.

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OK.

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Cybele.

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Yes.

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And the students who
we spoke with today,

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and it's just been-- it's
been such a good day,

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and the storm was amazing.

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And I just think, like,
as Tyler was saying,

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it's 53 years the Poetry
Center's been here.

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That's crazy, because
that's 53 years that people

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cared enough to keep
poetry not just alive,

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but create a space for it.

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That's just
un-fucking-believable.

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Bless y'all.

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Bless y'all.

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Thank you.

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OK just a couple more poems.

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"Parable of the
Prodigal Prajapati."

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"There are women in
the land of your birth

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who tucked machetes into
baskets fat with marigolds.

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For years you've been
trying to grow them here,

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but baba, the soil
of this country

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forgets the smell of sky
burnished with shrapnel.

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I noticed you rake
your heart out

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of the soil to rebury
your father and daughter.

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I noticed how much
you miss them,

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so I tried hard to learn the
language of your flowers.

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I noticed you liked it when
I stood beside you while you

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coaxed out each marigold's
hundreds of glowing florets

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so I could be married with your
country garlanding my neck.

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You didn't say anything
because you were

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scared of the lightning in me.

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You did your best to heal
the infection in my thorax.

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For my wedding you
took apart a staircase

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and fashioned it
into a palanquin

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because you believe
preserveable butterflies, even

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prodigal ones, deserve
to be carried elegantly

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as though we are glass.

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And I notice how hard you work
and how hard and calloused

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you've become.

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I noticed you can't
look me in the eyes

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anymore because now
I'm divorced too.

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Too grown.

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You keep ignoring the fragile
vertebrae of your spine

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to drag rocks and pour
cement because, like me, you

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never ever give up.

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And the other day, baba,
I scrubbed at the dirt

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beneath my nails with a
brush like you used to.

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Don't you see I am you?

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A young cocoon in wartime
split open too soon,

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then fluttering far from home
along that path of old world

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water.

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OK, so what if we did
end up in the new one,

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where our native four wings
are still being pinched then

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slit by unwelcome predators?

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Speaking of, the soldier
I chose is so like you.

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He helps me be more
breeze and less tornado,

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which helps me say,
I'm sorry, I didn't

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know how to handle being
the first of my own kind.

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I long for you now as
the night scarfs down

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another irresistible bowl
of something cold and sweet

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with a teaspoon.

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I wish I could
tell you marigolds

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can heal a person
struck by lightning,

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or carry them across
a river safely.

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That butterflies have
both scales and wings.

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That it's not your
fault. It was never

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your fault. Maybe
you already know."

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