WEBVTT

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And I want to say thanks to all
of Dad's friends who are here.

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There are quite a few of you who
were just really amazing to him

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and he loved you very much.

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He could be a strangely
challenging human being.

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But he was so funny and
brilliant and so much missed.

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So I'm going to
close with the poem

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that I wrote for the dedication
of the Poetry Center.

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And it's hanging in
the little guesthouse.

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And I just saw it over
there and in a broadside

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that I gave to
the Poetry Center.

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And I want to thank Gail
Browne for her amazing work

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that she did while she
was getting this building

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to happen.

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So this is called
To A Desert Poet,

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and it's in four
little short parts.

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So thank you for your
attention tonight.

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I'm going to answer
a few questions

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and I'll sign some books.

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And when I answer the
questions we'll turn the camera

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off so I can say anything--

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[LAUGHTER]

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That you want to ask.

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To A Desert Poet.

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You traveled, your mindset
forward slightly like

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your father's watch.

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You went toward
the blurred edges

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to make a skin of now, of later.

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The place of origins
included dust that spoke,

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the particle spirits, a hawk
with a droplet of blood,

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an armored road.

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Ancestors looked on.

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You etched letters
with a stick, making

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matter of the beautiful
and the felt. A divination.

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The first cemetery was lawless.

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You had to invent water
to pull meaning from form.

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A darkness between rhythms
and always at the edge of noon

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in pale pavilions
and ramadas of straw.

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Your practice coated in shadow.

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The sweet promise
of a visitor's well.

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Remember the dream
of the little owl?

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It came willingly to your hands
and everything quivered around

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where it flew in.

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Three.

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Your loved ones gather
strength after an illness.

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They put their heads
against the ears.

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They hear the molecular
rattle of the mesquite

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and finding bin of syllables.

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Their mother's
unchanging breath.

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They ask what is possible
given the wretched governments

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of Earth.

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A poem can't do much,
but it gives off sparks

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from its wheels, the bristle
and the clicks, mostly

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at moments of resistance.

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Four.

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And when you went
out in the world

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after the long
disease of yourself

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and saw the colors of the
world right before they arrive.

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The dulls and browns
of the absolute season.

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Mauves streaming in
the waters of a year.

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You knew the features
of a world are the same

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as the language of the soul.

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And by traveling in those
elements, you'd lose your fear.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]