WEBVTT

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And I'm going to finish
with a couple of poems

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that I think Fay,
I know Fay loved.

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And then the last one.

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These are very, very recent.

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Celia Cruz.

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How many people know
who Celia Cruz is?

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All right, thank you.

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All right.

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All right.

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"Celia Cruz, Snow
Angels" something

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you're not going
to see in Tucson.

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Maybe there are desert angels.

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I guess not.

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"Celia Cruz, Snow Angels."

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The Great Gatsby
jazz, the sorrows

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of summers where the wealthy
misspent their wealth, making

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the novice president an
apt arbiter of a future

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dulled by greed.

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Thus the novel's hero
dead by his rival's gun

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tells this harsh truth.

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Love does not conquest.

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Legs are for icing over.

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Diversions come as random as
this afternoon's mumble of news

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and sorrows and ice lakes.

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Ah, Celia Cruz's Cuban
Spanish brightens.

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What is she saying?

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And is it Spanish?

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Outside children in puffy
jackets and Christmas scarves

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are lying on their backs
in the new snow that

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takes their bodies' offering.

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There's laughter
as moms and dads

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and cousins and friends remember
their time in snow's embrace.

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Angels, these bodies
become angels brought down

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to Earth imprinted in snow.

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What proof have we of
these mythical creatures?

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Do angels laugh?

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Do they wear puffy jackets
and patterned scarves?

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Do they, once returned
upright, begin to ball snow

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into projectiles
and smash their kin?

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Are they cursing
this white-ness?

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Do they hear Celia Cruz's
potent voice singing in Spanish

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or maybe it is not Spanish, but
another tongue, denser, deeper,

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from a haven on this Earth
that she hears on blue days

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when the snow falls and
children stuff themselves

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into winter's
heaviest fabrics, then

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they fall quickly or slowly
into crystalline heaven,

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their winged arms
and leaping feet

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caught in a beat between sound
and sorrow, mermaid and surf.