WEBVTT

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In talking about the--

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what shall we call it?

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Natural world is such an awful
phrase, and non-human life,

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they all sound like
something out of some PR trip

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or little glossy
booklet or something.

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Non-human life,
that's a putdown.

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We ought to have better
phrases for these things.

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But I'm talking about
the natural world.

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I'm talking about the--

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I was born in New York City.

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I grew up across
the river from it.

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And the passion from before
I could write, almost

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before I could talk, had to
do with other things that were

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alive, with trees, for example.

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And I tried to figure out
where that could have begun,

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and I don't know.

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I suspect that it probably
begins in all of us

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very early when we get
rid of it, that this is--

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Taliesin has a line.

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In one of his terrible
prophetic poems,

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he said, "cold death shall
be the lot of the muse.

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It is natural to love her."

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I think it's natural
to love these things.

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EO Wilson wrote a
beautiful book called

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Biophilia, one of the
great living biologists,

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saying that it is natural
to have this feeling

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and that we've suppressed it.

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We've deliberately made
this detour which leads us

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into terrible blind alleys.

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Anyway, I was trying to
figure out where it began,

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and I'm not going to go into
a lengthy, boring, personal

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anecdote.

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But I know that there was
one tree in the city backyard

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which was one of the--

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I suppose the feeling of some
complete, unsayable trust

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was something that I felt first
in the presence of that tree.

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Obviously, I felt it in the
presence of my mother too,

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but it was different.

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I think if I hadn't felt it
in the presence of my mother,

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I wouldn't be here, so
I know that that's true.

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"Touching the Tree."

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"Faces are bending
over me asking why.

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They do not live here.

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They do not know anything.

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There is a black river
beyond the buildings,

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watching everything
from one side.

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It is moving while
I touch the tree.

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The black river says, no.

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My father says, no.

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My mother says, no.

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In the streets,
they say nothing.

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They walk past one at a time
in hats with their heads down.

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It is wrong to answer them
through the green fence.

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The street cars go by singing
to themselves, I am iron.

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The broom seller goes past
in the sound of grass.

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By the tree touching the
tree, I hear the tree.

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I walk with the tree.

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We talk without anything.

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Come late echoes of ferries,
chains, whistles, tires

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on the avenue, wires humming
among windows, words flying out

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of rooms, the stones of the wall
are painted white to be better.

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But at the foot of the tree
in the fluttering light,

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I have dug a cave
for a lion, a lion

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cave so that the cave will
be there among the roots,

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waiting when the lion
comes to the tree."

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