WEBVTT

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I'd like to take you
to a dinner in Spain.

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I was invited to do a
keynote for the American

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Association of Spanish--

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or the Spanish Association
of American Studies,

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and true to Spanish style, there
was a very wonderful late night

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dinner.

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And there's some
political overtones here

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that might speak to some of us.

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This is called The Wolves.

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A man told me this story at the
conference dinner, big round

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table, with talk of books, much
wine, queso y jamon to start.

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We shared an elegant
salad meant to be shared,

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vegetables built into a turret,
we dismantled and placed

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on our plates, bits of
partridge nestled in the leaves.

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Are they wild, I asked?

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Not this time of year.

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Wild ones leave
buckshot in your mouth.

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Narrow, pointed red peppers,
pimientos stuffed with cod.

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The man had grown up
during Franco's regime.

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His father returning from
service in the civil war.

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There were no jobs.

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He found work cutting
wood, Franco's plan

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to build waterworks, that
even after all the cruelty,

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people see was a good deed.

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The man, a Spanish
scholar of American

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lit, then a boy, remembered
how the family had moved,

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hut to hut in the woods,
building a new shelter

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as the cutting progressed.

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They lived on rabbits,
lizards, and frogs.

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The meal and the
wine went on and on,

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fish wrapped in thin straps of--

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thin strips of zucchini,
fig, ice cream, and currants,

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chocolate ganache, Bellota
liqueur and joy in conversation.

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We'd gathered to
talk about animals,

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and what kind of animal
we humans might be.

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Mother tamped down
the cook fire,

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father slept off
the ache of labor.

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Love kept us alive, he said.

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He had heard as a boy,
half asleep on forest

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ground, the wolves howl,
sing, I think, he said.

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And he was not afraid.

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Hearing him, seeing the love,
the man's name was Jesus.

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On his face, I thought
again, maybe the animals

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who were the first gods in
the childhood of humanity

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might be the last gods in
our desanctified world.

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