WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:06.420 align:middle line:84%
This poem has excerpts from
transcripts of drone operators

00:00:06.420 --> 00:00:09.247 align:middle line:90%
running missions in Afghanistan.

00:00:09.247 --> 00:00:10.830 align:middle line:84%
There's a note at
the end of the book,

00:00:10.830 --> 00:00:12.630 align:middle line:84%
those transcripts
are available to you

00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:13.905 align:middle line:90%
through the LA Times website.

00:00:13.905 --> 00:00:17.360 align:middle line:90%


00:00:17.360 --> 00:00:19.250 align:middle line:90%
Hands on the water you call.

00:00:19.250 --> 00:00:20.300 align:middle line:90%
Scene-setting.

00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:22.280 align:middle line:90%
Hands on the table.

00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:25.220 align:middle line:84%
Water over the houses
and hills swimming,

00:00:25.220 --> 00:00:27.830 align:middle line:90%
paint a picture of a boat.

00:00:27.830 --> 00:00:32.150 align:middle line:84%
Put everyone's names and it
all yourn, standing up tall

00:00:32.150 --> 00:00:34.880 align:middle line:90%
as your favorite bamboo.

00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:40.430 align:middle line:84%
In the yard, tell me again its
leaves fold back historically,

00:00:40.430 --> 00:00:42.950 align:middle line:90%
materially green.

00:00:42.950 --> 00:00:48.380 align:middle line:84%
Over its pale chutes opening and
dividing a day into something

00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:53.120 align:middle line:84%
like rooms collected in
the picture encyclopedia,

00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:59.270 align:middle line:84%
any guest could see youth
decades in montaged trunk

00:00:59.270 --> 00:01:00.560 align:middle line:90%
and bikini cuts.

00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:06.560 align:middle line:84%
All the soft, blind fingers
at the walls of a day.

00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:10.610 align:middle line:84%
Just a day folds
back to look on you

00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:14.270 align:middle line:84%
like an anchor
serving its subjects.

00:01:14.270 --> 00:01:16.400 align:middle line:84%
Floating out on a
water I couldn't

00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:23.120 align:middle line:84%
feel soaking into this valley
of gravel and clay 5,000 feet

00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:28.180 align:middle line:84%
thick under alluvial
fans of boulder debris.

00:01:28.180 --> 00:01:31.270 align:middle line:84%
Across desert floors,
young volcanism

00:01:31.270 --> 00:01:36.070 align:middle line:84%
made the real light red that
pulls the eye into the core

00:01:36.070 --> 00:01:39.520 align:middle line:90%
of mountain silhouettes.

00:01:39.520 --> 00:01:43.630 align:middle line:84%
We see shadows of people,
said drone pilots,

00:01:43.630 --> 00:01:46.470 align:middle line:90%
and we kill those shadows.

00:01:46.470 --> 00:01:49.590 align:middle line:90%
That's a kid there to the left.

00:01:49.590 --> 00:01:54.120 align:middle line:84%
That's what they were calling
the adolescent earlier.

00:01:54.120 --> 00:02:00.010 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, adolescents
don't move like that.

00:02:00.010 --> 00:02:01.920 align:middle line:84%
So the last two or
three lines of that

00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:06.120 align:middle line:84%
is the drone operators trying
to reconcile between themselves

00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:07.950 align:middle line:84%
what their commanding
officers are

00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:12.500 align:middle line:84%
labeling as appropriate
targets, what's killable.

00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:13.000 align:middle line:90%