WEBVTT

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So this poem is called
"On the Fifth Day."

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It was written on the fifth day
of the last presidency, which

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was the day that the White
House took down from its website

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all information
about climate change.

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And every scientist who worked
for the federal government

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was told not to speak about
their research to the public

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unless it was approved
by the political head

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of their administration.

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I took this a bit personally.

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A lot of my closest friends
are research scientists.

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"On the fifth day,
the scientists

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who studied the
rivers were forbidden

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to speak or to study the rivers.

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The scientists who
studied the air

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were told not to speak of
the air, and the ones who

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worked for the
farmers were silenced,

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and the ones who
worked for the bees.

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Someone, from deep in the
Badlands, began posting facts.

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The facts were told not to
speak and were taken away.

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The facts, surprised to
be taken, were silent.

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Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,

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and only the wind that
spoke of its bees,

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while the unpausing factual
buds of the fruit trees

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continued to move
toward their fruit.

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The silence spoke
loudly of silence,

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and the rivers kept speaking of
rivers, of boulders and error.

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Bound to gravity,
earless and tongueless,

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the untested rivers
kept speaking.

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Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists,

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accountants, lab techs,
cellists, kept speaking.

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They spoke, the fifth
day, of silence."

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