WEBVTT

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This guy did that kind
of installation piece,

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he did it in the
Great Salt Lake.

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And he also did it
in the DMZ in Korea

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on the edge of a deer park.

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And I'm not sure how he got
himself so covered with salt,

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but apparently he was naked.

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And he came out and he
was covered with salt.

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And he sat there in the field
on the edge of the deer park

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in utter quiet until
the deer came to him

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and found the salt that
they needed on his body.

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OK, "Rope."

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Is this about-- yeah, rope--

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about time, I think.

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I spent summers
on a little island

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off the coast of Eastern Canada.

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It's a fishing island,
a working island.

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It's suffering, like all places
that depend on the sea are.

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But one weird thing
happens up there.

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Every man I've ever
gone to the island with

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picks up these old scraps
of rope on the beach.

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I mean, there's all this
rope because it comes off

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the fishing boats.

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It's a washed up.

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And men just have to pick
it up and take it home.

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So I decided I better
write a poem about this--

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"Rope."

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The man gathers
rope every summer

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off the stone
beaches of the North.

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There's no sand in this place
where the Labrador current runs

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like an artery through
the body of the Atlantic,

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channeling particles that
once were glacial ice

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and now are molecules, making
not one promise to anyone.

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The man gathers rope with
his hands, both the rope

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and the hands worn from use.

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The rope-- from hauling
up traps and trawl lines.

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The hands-- from banging into
rocks, rusted nails, fish

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knives, and winch
gears, and bark.

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The rope starts to pull
apart, fiber by fiber,

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like the glacial ice.

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And the man wishes he could find
a way to bind it back together,

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the way a cook binds syrup
or sauce with cornstarch.

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The rope lies in the
cellar for years, coiled,

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stinking of the sea and the
fish that once lived in the sea,

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and the sweat of
the man who wishes

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he could save one strand of
the world from unraveling.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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