WEBVTT

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This next poem actually
came to being in Arizona.

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I was teaching at
Arizona State and had

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a wonderful group of students
who were learning how to write.

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And I was struggling
through this poem

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while they were also
struggling through theirs.

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It's called "Parsley."

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And I really owe a
debt of gratitude

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to the student who worked
in a pet store in Phoenix

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and brought her pet
parrot, or the parrot

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they were training, to class
so that we could study him.

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There are two
parts to this poem.

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Each part has a title.

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And I think that's
all you need to know,

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except that the main
character in here

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is General Rafael Trujillo, who
was a dictator of the Dominican

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Republic and had ordered,
on a particular day

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in October, 20,000 Haitian
cane workers to be killed.

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And the only way he
could distinguish them

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from the Dominican compatriots
in working in the cane fields

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was that they could not
roll an R. "Parsley."

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The cane fields.

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There is a parrot
imitating spring

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in the palace, its
feathers parsley green.

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Out of the swamp, the
cane appears to haunt us,

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and we cut it down.

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El General searches for a word.

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He is all the world there is.

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Like a parrot
imitating spring, we

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lie down screaming as
rain punches through

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and we come up green.

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We cannot speak an R. Out of
the swamp, the cane appears,

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and then the mountain we
call in whispers Katalina.

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The children know their
teeth to arrowheads.

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There is a parrot
imitating spring.

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El General has found
his word: perejil.

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Who says it lives.

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He laughs, teeth shining
out of the swamp.

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The cane appears in our dreams,
lashed by wind and streaming,

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and we lie down.

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For every drop of blood there
is a parrot imitating spring.

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Out of the swamp,
the cane appears.

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The palace.

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The word the general's
chosen is parsley.

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It is fall.

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When thoughts turn
to love and death,

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the general thinks
of his mother, how

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she died in the fall, and
he planted her walking cane

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at the grave and it flowered,
each spring stolidly forming

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four star blossoms.

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The general pulls
on his boots, he

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stumps to her room in
the palace, the one

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without curtains, the one
with a parrot in a brass ring.

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As he paces, he wonders,
who can I kill today?

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And for a moment the little
knot of screams is still.

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The parrot who has
traveled all the way

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from Australia in an ivory
cage is, coy as a widow,

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practicing spring.

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Ever since the morning, his
mother collapsed in the kitchen

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while baking skull
shaped candies

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for the Day of the Dead.

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The general has hated sweets.

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He orders pastries
brought up for the bird.

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They arrive dusted with
sugar on a bed of lace.

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The knot in his throat
starts to twitch.

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He sees his boots the
first day in battle

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splashed with mud and
urine, as a soldier falls

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at his feet amazed
how stupid he looked

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at the sound of artillery.

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"I never thought it would sing,"
the soldiers said and died.

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Now the general seeds
the fields of sugar cane

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lashed by rain and streaming.

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He sees his mother's smile,
the teeth gnawed to arrowheads.

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He hears the Haitians
sing without R's as they

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swing the great machetes.

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"Katalina," they sing.

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"Katalina, mi madre,
mi amol en muelte."

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God knows his mother
was no stupid woman.

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She could roll an
R like a queen.

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Even a parent can roll
an R. In the bare room,

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the bright feathers arch
in a parody of greenery

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as the last pale crumbs
disappear under the blackened

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tongue.

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Someone calls out
his name in a voice

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so like his mother's a
startled tears splashes

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the tip of his right boot.

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My mother, my love in death.

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The general remembers the tiny
green sprigs men of his village

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wore in their capes to
honor the birth of a son.

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He will order many
this time to be killed

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for a single beautiful word.

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The real problem that
I had with this poem.

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And Dean had mentioned
wanting to have truth.

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The truth was there,
and it was horrific.

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And that was the major problem.

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But there were minor truths
that needed to be gotten to,

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and one of them
concerned that parrot,

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whether there were in
fact pure green parrots

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the color of parsley.

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And thanks to the student,
I found out that there were,

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and then I could proceed.

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