WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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It's a privilege to be
here and a pleasure.

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It's kind of like being
reincarnated or dying.

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And you know, you see, you
can take a fast trip back

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through your life and
see all your friends

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and enemies assembled
by the side of the road

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as you rush towards
the point of light.

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So thank you for coming.

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I'm going to start
off by reading a poem.

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I've been trying to
write some poems about--

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privilege in some ways and
sort of the mixed emotions

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and the sort of mixed
conditions of it,

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and realizing that the glass
of water you drink from

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is a privilege and that people
work to build the pipes that

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brought the water to you.

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Everything is sort
of like the pyramids.

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And thousands of slaves
died to put it there

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so you could stand on top
and enjoy the evening breeze.

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And so this poem is
sort of about that.

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It makes passing reference
to the thinning ozone

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layer and other ecologically
correct references.

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It's called "Candlelight."

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Can you hear me well?

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It could be better.

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OK.

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I'll try to read
a little louder,

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or maybe the mic
could be turned up.

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Candlelight.

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Crossing the porch
in the hazy dusk

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to worship the moon rising
like a yellow filling station

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sign on the black horizon.

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You feel the faint grit of
ants beneath your shoes,

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but keep on walking
because in this world,

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you have to decide what
you're willing to kill.

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Saving your marriage
might mean dinner for two

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by candlelight on steak
raised on pasture chopped out

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of rainforest, whose
absence might mean

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an atmospheric thinness
50 years from now,

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above the vulnerable head of
your bald grandson on vacation,

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as the cells of his scalp,
sauteed by solar radiation,

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break down like suspects
under questioning.

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Still you slice the
sirloin into pieces

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and feed each other
on silver forks,

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under the approving gaze of a
waiter whose purchased attention

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and French name are a kind
of candlelight themselves,

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while in the background, the
fingertips of the pianist

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float over the tusks of
the slaughtered elephant

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without a care, as if
the elephant had granted

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its permission.

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