WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you, Susan,
that was beautiful.

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Thank you all for coming; it's
a great pleasure to be here.

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I was awake at 4:00
in the morning,

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in the Bay Area to
make it here in time,

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and it's a great
honor to read here.

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My husband, Bob Hass, and
I were last here helping

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to dedicate this room, and
I've visited Tucson many times

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seeing my parents.

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I'm going to start with a
poem that I wrote for Tucson.

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It's in "Seasonal Works,"
and, as Susan mentioned,

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I have been at work on
many kinds of experiments.

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And this book concludes a
tetralogy on the elements,

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and so it interrogates language,
and the elements as a concept.

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How's our mic, is it good?

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Yeah, OK.

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"As The Roots Prepare
For Literature."

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"Sound, what is your muse?

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Just now, we found a
meaning but too soon--

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[CLICKING]

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Dawn sprinklers start
and crickets wheel,

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they go down-down,
dippy down-down.

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Smell of toast in the
suburbs, the West is burning.

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Our little mother
prays in her sleep,

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our father rests under his
new big scar like America.

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Ancestors step through
flame to get to them.

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Beyond air, the galaxies whirl
ceaselessly as picnic salt.

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Our childhood sight hath
gathered multitudes--

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on streets named
for forts or saints,

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news is brought to
foreclosed houses.

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The medicated grasses wait.

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In other desert, soldiers
kill other people's parents.

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Here the unemployed wear boots
in cafes near terrifying pies

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piled high with cream.

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Wrens make nests in cholla,
Cylindropuntia fulgida.

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Spirits stand around
in the bodies of doves.

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Do you remember
learning to spell?

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It's best to bring words
slowly into English--

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"wrad," the root of "root,"
shines for centuries

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underground.

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It's not for nothing the
shadows are lit when children

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are called to literature.

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Now word has gone out that
you are here as sleepers

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curve their heat
shapes to the ground.

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Hard for you to
keep steady, I know.

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The roots of your words
can see fire, though."

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