WEBVTT

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Petrel Chick.

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What did I know, lying in the
darkness where I had hatched?

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At first, I loved the
smell of loam, musk,

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the dampness of the underneath.

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Then came a fishy scent,
though what did I know of fish?

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Bill to bill, my
lunch was served.

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I had no control over where
I lived, when or what I ate.

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But sufficient to my status
as a puff of protofeathers,

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the meals kept tunneling
down from the spot of light

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at burrow's end.

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I knew to raise my
mouth to what arrived.

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I had no idea what I was
or what I was meant to be.

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Ridiculous, I know, that
I should have a voice,

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sleep, and eat, and roll
over in the earth and dark.

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That was life.

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Until I grew so blubbered, I
could barely turn in my sleep.

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I squeezed out of
that earth hold

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when I caught the open ocean
scent that told me I had wings.

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And I was gone into
sea-spangled spume and sky.

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