WEBVTT

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"But Feathers of Discontent--

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Kingfishers."

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I used a line in the poem
for the title of each poem.

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Our beginning was
covered in water,

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and all the animals
spoke the same language.

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Panther tracked back and
forth across the skies,

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long escarpments,
nightfall, and rock mouth.

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Buzzard grew tired and
flapped his broad wings.

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The soil beneath him
rippled into hills.

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Our threads unraveled.

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Spider's reins returned.

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Beneath the surface
of the floodwaters,

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the lost people
rubbed their faces

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with earth, their rutted eyes
resistant roads of grain.

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The only willing survivors--

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not ghosts, the planet's
oldest organisms,

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but feathers of discontent
kingfishers, drifting

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wind struck over
Earth's ancient vents,

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sketched on their city's
chipped brass plates,

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our futures'
blinking archipelago.

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Wouldn't it be preferable to
drown, victims of upper world

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explanation?

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There are no hard
syllables in water.

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Our boat disappeared
over the Earth's edge,

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and what we didn't
see was paradise.

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Thank you, Michael,
for the echoes,

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as I heard paradise
in two of your pieces.

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And I feel like I--

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this book, I have, paradise,
mentioned a lot, too,

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and I'm still
curious about that.

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[LAUGHS] That's something
to be curious about.

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