WEBVTT

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The next series of poems
are kind of a transition

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towards an ecopoetic.

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One of the things that
I can't help but do

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is think of our
relationship to the Earth,

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to the world, what we do
to it, what we're doing

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to it, and a path forward.

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So this poem's called
"The Axolotl Speaks."

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It begins with an epigraph
from Scientific America,

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April, 2011.

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"You can cut the spinal cord,
crush it, remove a segment,

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and it will regenerate.

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You can cut the limbs at any
level, the wrist, the elbow,

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the upper arm, and
it will regenerate.

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And it's perfect.

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There is nothing missing.

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There's no scarring on the
skin at the site of amputation.

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Every tissue is replaced.

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They can regenerate the same
limb, 50, 60, 100 times,

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and every time, perfect."

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"Tu me dices--

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You are losing
the animal within.

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Y yo digo nada.

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How can you battle a deity?

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Instead I ask how many times
have you offered your arms?

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How many?

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How do you describe
the infinite?

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70 times 7.

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The nervous system.

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Transmutations.

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Re-calibrated.

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Spine re-stacked.

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Eres guardia?

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Or guarded.

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And you welcome silence
with space, with quiet.

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So I must consider
your revival alone.

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The monstrance opening and
my tied tongue to my knees.

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Enseñame.

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Undeed this border.

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Make me explain
Xochimilco, canaled.

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Nunca libre.

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Brain clipped.

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Dolor.

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A synapse lodged
between dendrites--

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una viuda, a retina, nulo,
todo, a trucing fissure, a wand.

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Olvidado es el hueso.

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A chip, abandoned.

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You finally say, do
this in memory of me.

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As if I could tragar un lago,
and the cortex could steed,

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spear, and war the blood.

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Then you ask me--

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what remains cuando
has deshecho scars

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and reconstruiste the self?

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Gruñidos.

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Yes.

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Growls.

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Or simply, virga
gathering in drought."

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