WEBVTT

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This poem was written
some months later.

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That news, of course, wasn't
revealed to the public

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until September,
although the war

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was supposed to have
ended at the end of March.

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And that had happened
in March, but we

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didn't get to read about
it until September.

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And as I said in a
footnote, an endnote,

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to the best of my knowledge,
it was not followed up

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and seems to have gone virtually
unnoticed in the national media

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and the national consciousness.

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I mean, during the Vietnam War,
at least the My Lai Massacre

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caused widespread outrage.

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But this just rippled
off into nowhere.

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This poem is written
while I was getting

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a lot of reports through
Ramsey Clark's reports

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and from other sources about
the effect on Iraqi children

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particularly of the embargo.

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There were no medical supplies,
no milk, no clean water,

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et cetera, et cetera
after the bombings.

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That was in the late summer
and fall of the same year.

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And I had spent the entire
actual Gulf War in California

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because that's when I teach
at Stanford, the first three

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months of each
year, and this poem

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is written then looking
back to those three months,

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it's called "In California
during the Gulf War."

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"Among the blight
killed eucalypts,

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among trees and bushes rusted
by Christmas frosts, the yards,

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and hillsides exhausted
by five years of drought,

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certain airy white blossoms
punctually re-appeared

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and dense clusters of
pale pink, dark pink,

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a delicate abundance.

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They seemed like guests arriving
joyfully on the accustomed

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festival day, unaware
of the year's events,

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not perceiving the sackcloth
others were wearing.

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To some of us, the
dejected landscape

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consorted well with our
shame and bitterness.

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Sky's ever blue, daily
sunshine disgusted us

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like smile buttons.

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Yet the blossoms
clinging to thin branches

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more lightly than
birds alert for flight,

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lifted the sunken heart
even against its will.

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But not as symbols of hope.

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They were flimsy
as our resistance

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to the crimes committed
again again in our name.

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And yes, they return
year after year,

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and yes, they briefly
shone with serene joy

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over against the dark
glare of evil days.

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They are, and their presence
is quietness ineffable,

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and the bombings are, were,
no doubt will be that quiet,

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that huge cacophony,
simultaneous.

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No promise was being accorded.

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The blossoms were not doves.

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There was no rainbow,
and when it was claimed,

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the war had ended,
it had not ended."

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And I said that about the
effects of children in Iraq--

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of the embargo-- because that's
what I was talking about when

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I--

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one of the things I was
doing but at least, when

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I ended that poem
by saying and when

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it was claimed the war had
ended, it had not ended.

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