WEBVTT

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So Blue Flax and
Yellow Mustard Flower.

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I have no idea how
I'm doing on time.

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I'm not going to go Cory Booker
on you, but man, it's tempting.

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It is tempting.

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So I took one of my grandsons
to the Galápagos Islands.

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The other I took to the
Peloponnesian Peninsula.

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And I'll just--
there's a sequence

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of poems from the Galápagos.

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I'll read two of these poems.

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A lot of these poems I wrote,
as Katherine suggested,

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during COVID, when I
couldn't go anywhere,

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and I realized I've
gone a lot of places.

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It's time to write those poems.

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So this is from the Galápagos.

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Iguana.

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And the iguanas adapted
there, because there

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wasn't much to eat on the land.

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And so they became
capable of feeding

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in the water on algae and
various plant organisms

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in the water.

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So these marine iguanas
are astonishing,

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if you haven't seen them.

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Iguana.

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Oh, sure.

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One or two beady
headed monsters,

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ridge backed, long
clawed, blunt headed,

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might have made it floating from
Ecuador on a broken tree limb.

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But how to explain thousands
upon thousands queued up

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in group salutes to the
sun or lying together

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by dozens disguised
as rocks to spoon,

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one spiny claw draped over
the shoulder of another?

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And then they wake, scurry in
waddling gait to water's edge,

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dive and swim, gleaning
seaweed off underwater rock,

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adapted, we say, like novel
to movie, from land feeders

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to marine machines.

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No predatory neighbors.

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It's just one long
long beach party.

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A sea lion or two lumbering
up to sleep on the sand.

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Good friends, says the guide,
about every living thing.

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Though, of course,
eating is a factor.

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Shark takes sea lion.

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Pup Hawk takes turtle egg.

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Flightless cormorants
are the norm,

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hanging out micro wings to dry.

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They gave up building big wings.

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So easy was the
catch along shore.

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In time, their prey
will learn to fear.

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But now, the
immigrants make it look

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easy to inhabit a place
that never before was home.

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No land, no springs,
no rivers, just

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every organism's joy to thrive.

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