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I want to thank the
Poetry Center so much,

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and Tyler, and
Hannah, and Julie,

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and Cybele and everyone who made
me feel welcome this afternoon,

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and the great faculty--

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amazing faculty that you have.

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Really cool poets.

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So this book began with a
single moment of weird insight.

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I was between water and fire.

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And I was thinking
what on earth could I

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bring to the idea of fire that
poets haven't already brought?

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And Bob and I were
driving down the coast

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and it was exactly
this time of year.

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And we looked out at
a field and there were

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lots of pumpkins, just
pumpkins and gourds.

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And I thought about--

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I had a flash of thinking.

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Those pumpkins have--
they don't need me at all.

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They have a separate existence
and they have no consciousness.

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They're a different
kind of life and they

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have all these eyes that are
lined up inside their bodies.

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And it gave me such an
immense feeling of happiness.

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I just felt completely
relieved about being on earth.

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And it sort of-- this
whole book bloomed inside

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of me thinking about
non-human nature trying

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to be with human nature.

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So this is the poem
that came out of it.

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And "Veronica's Veil" refers
to-- if you had a Catholic

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education, you know
this-- but it refers--

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Veronica held her
veil up to Jesus' face

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and the face left an imprint.

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But for some reason
they've never

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been able to figure
out where the veil is

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and so it really doesn't exist.

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"To spirits of
fire after harvest.

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Between earth and its
noun I felt a fire.

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What does it mean by I, Missus.

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It means, and I quote, 'one
of the vowels in the brain

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and some of the you's.'

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We were interested in the type
of thing humans can't know,

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interested in kinds of
think animals think--

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a rabbit or a skink.

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You Mrs. Skiltonianus when
autumn brings a grammar.

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Wasp circle the
dry stalks and you

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can totally see through amber
ankles dangling in dazzle

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under our lord, the
sun of literature.

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Between noon and its noun, there
were ridged and golden runes

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on pumpkins, bluish
gourds in the fields.

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Their white eyes
lined up inside.

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Wait a sec, please don't
nail the door shut.

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The air is friendly
and non-existent

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as Veronica's veil.

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Earth, don't torment your
fool, your ambassador clown.

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Bring the x of oxygen and
sex, a fox running sideways

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through present noon."

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