WEBVTT

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"The Planet Krypton."

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"Outside the window, the McGill
Smelter sent a red dust down

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on the smoking yards of copper.

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On the railroad
tracks, freight ends

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that disappeared into the
congestion of the afternoon.

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Ely lay, dull and scuffed,
a miner's boot toe

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worn away, dim, while my mother
knelt before the Philco to coax

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the detonation from the static.

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From the Las Vegas Tonopah
Artillery and Gunnery Range,

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the sound of the atom bomb came
biting like a swarm of bees

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while we sat in the
hot Nevada dark,

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delighted when the
switch was tripped

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and the bomb hoisted up its
silky, hooded, glittering,

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uncoiling length.

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It hissed and spit.

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It sizzled like a
poker in a toddy.

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The bomb was no
mind and all body.

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It sent a fire of static down
the spine, and in the dark

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it glowed like the coils
of an electric stove.

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And it stripped every
leaf from every branch

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until a willow by a creek
was a bouquet of switches,

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resinous, naked,
flexible, and fine.

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Bathed in the light
of KDWN, Las Vegas,

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my crouched mother looked
radioactive, swampy, like

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something from the
planet Krypton.

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In the suave and brilliant
wattage of the bomb,

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we were not poor.

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In the atoms' fizz and pop,
we heard possibility uncork.

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Taffeta wraps whispered
on davenports.

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A new planet bloomed
above us, and in its light

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even the stumps of cut pine
gleamed like dinner plates.

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The world was beginning all
over again, fresh and hot.

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And we could have
all of it we wanted."

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[APPLAUSE]

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Oh, thank you.

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