WEBVTT

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A poet friend of mine
took her dog for a walk,

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could not get back to
her house, and then

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she posted on Facebook,
the gazebo survived.

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Her house was one of 14,000
burned in the Camp Fire.

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And her husband posted
on Facebook, that's

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not exactly exactly accurate.

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We also have the
ceramic pot where

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the back porch used to be.

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So after great trauma,
sometimes the necessary chores

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create another layer of trauma.

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That's what begins this poem.

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It's called "Red
Sky," and the request

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at the beginning of
the poem is something

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that was asked of her.

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"Red Sky."

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"List everything you've lost.

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Ars poetica of heartbreak.

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What's possible to
replace, what never is.

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The sky's memory-- smoke.

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Say a wall of flames sears
inside your eyelids every time

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you close them.

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What wish floats
on streams of ash?

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What sky remains?

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In the waiting room,
on the never off TV,

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a river of poor people
draws near the line.

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The talking head's
scarlet lips say

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officials can process
only a trickle each day.

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Thousands gather.

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Next to me a woman with a
fistula, mature and swollen,

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woman with her upper
arms saran wrapped,

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woman with a beatific smile
says, why process them?

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Just send them back.

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Say a girl knows early.

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Knows, as a doctor, she wants
to improve world health.

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Say this girl hears along
the way what girls can't do.

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Say she laughs.

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Say she prepares
herself to laugh a lot.

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Say this season coyotes,
sleek and shiny, gorge plenty

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of rabbits.

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Sure-footed javelina brush by
creosote's tiny yellow blooms,

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nip new paddles of prickly pear.

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In their burrows whiptail
lizards, shedding rattlers,

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scholarly and deliberate
gila monsters, repose,

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patient as earth."

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