WEBVTT

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Well it's a pleasure to be here.

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And I don't always say that.

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I'll read one poem from
The Forces of Plenty.

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This poem is called
"The Diviner."

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A diviner is a water witch,
someone who can find water.

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I just came from a
couple of days in Texas.

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So it occurred to me
to read this poem.

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Oh, if you don't have children
or haven't been around them

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for a while, you
might need to know

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that the fontanelle is the
soft spot on the baby's head.

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"The Diviner."

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"The danger surfaced
in the fontanelle.

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I held your head on my
arm, whispering lullabies

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into your sweet, hot neck.

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By the second week,
that was forbidden.

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Then you swam alone on your
white sheet, robed, masked.

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I put my face as
close as I could

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get it to see what the
sickness pulsed and signaled.

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When I was little,
my father used

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to light a Lucky and blow
warm smoke like a secret

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into my sore ear.

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I was amazed.

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It never escaped
through the other ear

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nor any orifice
mother peered into

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to be housing the
breath of my father.

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Now you are growing and
closing everywhere against me.

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The melded hemispheres of bone
have sealed my small window

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as I pace the dry
ground with my wand,

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trying to hold the
stick without bias,

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trying to learn what
the surface will not

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tell until the
green wood plunges,

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nearly twists from my grip.

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There's water here.

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But how much and how deep?"

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