WEBVTT

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And I read that in conjunction
with a poem I wrote yesterday.

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I went to a little
shop around here

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that sells some local
art and the woman

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told me the story of the
storyteller, the doll or the--

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do you know this statue?

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It's part of an
Indian tradition.

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I'm sure you know loads
more about this than I do.

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But anyway one of the
things I've been doing

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is collecting women
portraits and statues

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to put around my desk.

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It started with a Crucian
woman who someone sent me

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a picture in the mail
of a Crucian woman

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a very strong dignified
woman probably about 70.

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And she she's communicating
her strength to me.

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Then somebody sent me Gertrude
Stein at 26 years old.

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And I put Gertrude up
there looking at me.

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She's a rather
forbidding presence.

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And I found this storyteller,
and if you see it's--

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she always has her
mouth open and there

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are babies she's holding,
and the babies all

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have their mouths open.

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And she's sitting very
flat and the babies

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are hanging on to her.

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I thought about how in my
childhood from a lot of places

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I was hearing don't say it,
don't tell it, be quiet.

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Don't say the truth.

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And I was thinking
of sometimes how hard

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it is to peel back
the layers and say

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what it is you need to say.

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Sometimes you have to go
against the people you love even

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sometimes to say
what you need to say.

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And so, storyteller--

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I bought storyteller.

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I left the store and I said
I'll come back tomorrow,

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but then I came back
and I got storyteller.

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And this is what I
wrote last night.

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"I say hello, oracle,
kind mother, you

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who have opened your mouth, who
have allowed all of your babies

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to open their mouths.

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Storyteller of the
buried, storyteller

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of the gods and goddesses,
storyteller of the living Earth

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grounded, butt
fixed flat to Earth,

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from Earth the voices
rise through your anus.

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You feel your legs vibrate.

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Your spine the rod
of the universe

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that all the fruit must cling
to each arm a branch of stars.

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You look at us intensely.

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We are your mirror.

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Your words repeat what you
hear in our hearts, the secrets

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under sleeping lids.

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Your children cling
as to a roaring train

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though you are still calm.

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They sense your movement.

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You will never be
at this place again.

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The Earth falls naked
stripped to dirt mountains.

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Now we can listen to
what we cannot yet hear."

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