WEBVTT

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There's a part of
Brooklyn-- there's

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a beautiful neighborhood
in Brooklyn,

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beautiful maybe is
not the first word

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most people would
use for it but it's

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a charming and interesting.

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It's called Red Hook.

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And it's back where all
the port of New York

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was, and there are lots
of the shipping culture

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and the maritime culture
is still very strong there.

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And there's a pier
called the Valentino Pier

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and it juts out into what feels
like the center of New York

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Harbor but of course it
is, and it's just however

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many meters it is, oh,
this is my cue to--

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But being there
you can, at times,

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feel completely surrounded
by and embraced by the sea.

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And I wrote this poem watching
the light on water, which

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is like one of my
favorite things to do,

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is just to watch the light
reflected on the water surface.

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"The Light."

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Isn't it the work
of those of us who

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work to make new tools with the
tools we are given, hammering

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matter into matter,
more adapted to the hand

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than to the memory of a
hand, less to the past

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than to the path
of what comes next?

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And isn't it the work of
the next adaptation in part

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to evince specifically by
being what it is, regardless

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of detail and whether
it wants to or not,

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the matter of persistence
through change,

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the hammering of being into
time, which is itself the work?

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And so it was I took
myself downriver,

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early in the midst of the world
wide sickness, the light on me

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knowledgeable as all light is
knowledgeable, silent archive

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of everything that happens,
it puts you in your place,

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the light put me in my place,
light on the surface of East

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River in March, light
July through October,

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light at noon on slopes
of undulations pearling

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for a moment till it gleams
up on the peaks, the light

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like melon ribbon,
light dribbling

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from the mouth of a mythical
beast like Blake's dragon,

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but in effect, closer to a
nebulous walrus made of fire.

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I am the nebulous
walrus made of fire.

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I walk among you
unrecognized but laughing.

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There is so much beauty
left to see in this world.

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And I became what
I am now to see it.

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