WEBVTT

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I began working with
Amnesty International,

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and most of the time, as many
of you who might work with them

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as well know, our work
is writing letters

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and sending telegrams.

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But they also have people
who gather information and do

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particular kinds
of work in country.

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My job in Spain was to
interview Latin American exiles

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and compile material on
human rights conditions

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from the countries
they had just left.

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The next poem I'm
going to read to you

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was one that arose from
one of those stories.

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It's the only one that
ever entered a poem,

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but it's about a
woman named Elena.

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She was married to an Argentine
journalist for 25 years,

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and on their
wedding anniversary,

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they celebrated by
going out to dinner

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and then taking a walk
along the Rio de La Plata,

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the Silver River
of Buenos Aires.

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And then they hailed a
taxi cab to take them home,

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and taxi cabs are not very
frequent late at night

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in Buenos Aires in those days,
but one came immediately.

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And they got in and
gave their address,

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and the taxi driver repeated it
back to them, as is customary,

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but also into a communication
device on his person.

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And he took a roundabout
route to the house.

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They didn't notice
this, and when

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they pulled in front of the
house and opened the door,

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her husband was
machine gunned to death

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and she was wounded
in the mouth.

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She was taken, by her
husband's assailants,

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to police headquarters for
24 hours, interrogation,

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and then permitted by Isabel
Peron to leave the country.

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She went to Paris.

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She told me the stories
over lunch in Palma,

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and she wanted me to try a
specialty of the Mediterranean,

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a dish called Paella.

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Paella is a round
dish of saffron rice

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with various kinds of sea
fruits and meats arranged on it.

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The Memory of Elena.

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We spend our morning
in the flower stalls,

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counting the dark
tongues of bells

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that hang from ropes waiting
for the silence of an hour.

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We find a table, ask for
paella, cold soup, and wine,

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where a calm light
trembles years behind us.

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In Buenos Aires only
three years ago,

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it was the last time his
hand slipped into her dress,

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with pearls cooling her throat
and bells like these chipping

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at the night.

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As she talks, the
hollow clopping

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of a horse, the sound of
bones touched together,

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the paella comes, a bed of
rice and camarones fingers

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and shells, the lips of--