WEBVTT

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All right, for a
lighter note, I walloped

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you guys with some
pretty serious problems.

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Here's a lighter one, kind of.

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[CHUCKLES]

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I love venereal
terms, and I don't

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mean as in venereal diseases.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I mean, that's the same
word, same spelling.

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As most of you know--

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most poets I know of--
love venereal terms too.

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Venereal terms, for those
who you may not know,

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are words for groups
of animals or things.

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For instance, a "sloth" of
bears or a "colony" of beavers

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or a "peal" of bells or--

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I wrote down a few
because I can't remember.

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There's so many-- a
"babble" of cell phones.

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And this poem, which is called
"Dawn Over the Tiber River,"

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in Rome, deals
with what's called

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a "murmuration of starlings."

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So I don't know if any of
you have been lucky enough

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to see these flocks of
starlings at dusk, or dawn,

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where there are
thousands of them

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doing these phenomenal
acrobatic formations in the sky.

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I can see, you're
imagining them, right?

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They're just beautiful
and graceful.

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And if you can imagine thousands
and thousands of starlings--

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you don't want to be
under them because you're

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going to be bombarded.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But where I was, in
Rome, I was at a bridge

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overlooking the Tiber River.

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And it was dusk.

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And I was with my husband,
and all of a sudden,

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there were 10,000 starlings
doing this murmuration,

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that venereal term.

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We watched it.

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It was one of the most
spectacular acts of nature

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I have ever seen.

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So if you have not seen that,
go someplace and see it.

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OK, so this is "Dawn
Over the Tiber River."

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"100,000 starlings rise skyward,
in fluid streams and swelling

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throngs, spinning,
looping, stretching

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their chirping
flocks, like taffy,

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above the platinum,
shimmering water.

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Their 10,000 cries like
stampeding waterfalls

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or electronic music gone viral.

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A five-mile long serpentine
river, of dark, speckled birds,

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is rushing headlong
into a new day

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at the end of a terrible year.

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A year full of terrors,
death of thousands

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from the Fukushima tsunami.

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Oh, death of my beautiful
delicate mother,

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and death of my husband's
lonely, soldiering father.

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But the day is born anew.

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The starling singing and
winging their terrifying joy

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into a world that's
fresh with dew

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on the surface of cars, bridges,
and ancient Roman ruins.

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Only, look.

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There is the ancient
Emperor, Nero,

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crowned with a dripping
ring of bird guano.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Simply to be born is
enough, sometimes.

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Much harder to endure."

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