WEBVTT

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And I'll read one last poem.

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And I think there'll still be
time for a couple of questions

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and books.

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And this is sort of,
indeed, a bookend

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to the first poem I wrote.

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And it's another pantoum
and written, in part,

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in memory of Adrienne Rich.

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Were the mountain
women sold as slaves

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in the city my friend has not
written from for two weeks?

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One of the Just has
given back his medal.

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I wake up four times in the
night soaked with sweat.

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In the city my friend
has not written from,

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for two weeks there was
almost enough electricity.

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I wake up four times in
the night soaked with sweat

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and change my shirt
and go to sleep again.

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There was almost
enough electricity

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to heat water, make tea,
bathe, write emails,

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and change her shirt
and go to sleep again.

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Her mother has gallstones.

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Her sister mourns.

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Heat water, make tea,
bathe, write emails

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to Mosul, New York,
London, Beirut.

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Her sister mourns
a teen-aged son

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who died in a stupid
household accident.

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To Mosul, Havana,
London, Beirut,

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I change the greeting,
change the alphabet.

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War, like a stupid
household accident,

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changes the optics
of a scene forever.

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I changed the greeting,
changed the alphabet, hola,

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morning of light, ya compañera,
changed the optics of a scene

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forever, present, and
always altogether elsewhere.

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Morning of roses,
kiss you, hasta

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luego to all our
adolescent revolutions,

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present and always
altogether elsewhere.

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It seemed as if something
would change for good tomorrow.

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All our adolescent
revolutions gone gray

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drink exile's coffee
if they're lucky.

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It seemed as if something
would change for good tomorrow.

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She was our conscience
and she died too early.

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The gray exiles drink
coffee if they're lucky.

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Gaza's survivors sift
through weeping rubble.

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She was our conscience,
but she died too early

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after she spoke of
more than one disaster.

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Cursing, weeping, survivors
sift through rubble.

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One of the Just has
given back his medal

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after he spoke of more
than one disaster.

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How can we sing our
songs if we are slaves?

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]