WEBVTT

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I'm going to read
this poem, which is--

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it's a poem I never read before.

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It's odd.

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I was living in Washington,
DC a couple of years ago,

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other bad news has
replaced that--

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you remember that when the
sniper was haunting Washington

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DC, and somebody was shooting
people with a high power

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long distance rifle.

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It made DC a strange
place to live of course,

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for that period of time.

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But there was also something
sort of charged about it,

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in a way that fear sort of
heightens your awareness,

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and also there was
something almost--

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you could say sort of biblical
or sort of hallucinogenic

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about it.

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You knew something was happening
as so often in cultural moments

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we do, you know
something's happening,

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but you don't know exactly
whence it's coming from,

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or what it means.

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So, the air was full of
speculation about why was this?

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Who was this sniper?

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Was it a foreign terrorist?

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And what did it mean?

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But you felt that it
definitely meant something.

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And so this is an
attempt to write a poem

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about that, called "Summer."

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"God moves mysterious
thunderheads

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over the towns and
office buildings,

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cracks them open like raw eggs.

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The North has critical
humidity, the South

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plucks at its sweaty clothes.

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The weatherman
says, "It's August,"

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and a sniper is
haunting Washington DC.

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He's picking victims at random,
from shopping malls and parking

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lots, touching them with
bullets like blue fingertips.

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And some say he's
an unemployed geek

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with a chip on his
shoulder, and some say,

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he's an agent of
ancient Greek theology.

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Gibbs says the sniper is a
surrealist travel agent booking

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departures only, or
he's a dada

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lawyer without
a client arguing

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in 30 caliber sentences.

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Robin says the sniper is
what the country invented

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as a symptom of
its mental illness.

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And Marcia is sad
because she knows

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the sniper could have been
cured by a regimen of vitamins

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and serotonin
reuptake inhibitors.

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We've fallen into one of our
comas of obesity and celebrity.

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When the sniper went off like
an alarm clock and the preacher

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on TV said that he had come
according to Revelations 3:14,

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to punish us for the crime
of not being ready for death.

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But as Snoopy, the clerk at the
7-11 said, "What kind of crime

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is that?"

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Meanwhile, the air conditioners
are working overtime,

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the rooftops are full of
SWAT teams and camera crews,

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and the sky too is
mobilizing dark clouds

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without speaking, menacing
at millennial clouds.

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We don't know yet what the
metaphysical facts are.

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We don't know if our sniper
is domestic or foreign terror,

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what color the chip
on his shoulder is,

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or what we will do if the
sniper chooses us tomorrow.

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But when we go out now,
we feel our nakedness.

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Each step has a slender
string attached.

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And when we move, we
move more quietly,

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as we slide among the
sinners, and the snipers,

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and the summer, in the
simmering medicinal ring."

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