WEBVTT

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I was a grad student
at Cornell, where

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I studied with poet AR Ammons.

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And we used to hang
out in the hallways,

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swapping our latest
marvels from science.

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And I decided
finally that I would

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write a poem that would give
a sense of the conversations

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that we would have that's
absolutely authentic.

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It's called "AR Ammons
Amid the Fungi."

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"You say, segmented worms
roll back their saddles

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during copulation.

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And I say, yes, and pine
bristles like a boar's back.

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And you say, red capped
fungi will fabric the spring.

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And I say, yes, and
woodchucks in hibernation

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are breathing only
10 times an hour.

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And you say shape and
form and saliences.

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And I say verbal pliés,
acoustic fatigue.

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And do you read lodestars
and cereal boxes?

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And you say, yes, and
navigation manuals, placemats,

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and hurricane charts.

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I say, do you mind that it's
colder than a polar bear's

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menses or that a cat in a black
hole in space becomes linguine?

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I say, did you know
that from Rimbaud you

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get barium and radium, bim,
bram, mab, braid, drum, dram,

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daub, raid?

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You say, yes, and also bird
and Brad, Baird and Mau

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and Ra and Maud.

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And axolotl is also good.

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Have you tried vineyard yet?

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And I say, yes, but
that pockmarked aluminum

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prop that we call a moon answers
directly to mission control.

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You say, that trollop's
on a tether of Tang.

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She put the rill in Rilke,
you know what I mean?

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I say, yes, a bone
knits and a river purls.

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And I've always admired
your Southern kraal.

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And you say, jejune and
knee deep in the magma.

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And I say, this is not the
Hebrew letter for Jehovah.

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And you say, one
thing about death--

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it's hereditary.

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And I say, where
the hell are we,

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and incidentally, how
the hell is it here?

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Isn't a friend someone
to tread water with?

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And you say, the asylum of
idle chatter is wide open."

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[APPLAUSE]

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