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OK, that was a little
out of my range.

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The next poem is a poem
that I got the title

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from Kaveh Akbar,
who gave a talk,

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and it was called
poetry and spirituality.

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And it was a stunning talk.

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And it's available at the
Academy of American Poets.

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But there was a phrase
in there that he

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used, postures of devotion.

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And that just resonated with me.

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And I'm from
Northwestern Minnesota.

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I spend part of each year
in a water access cabin

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adjacent to the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

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And much of this poem is
situated from that area.

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"Postures of Devotion.

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Before me Kawishiwi stretches--

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River a palette of frost.

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Nearby glazed berries
dot the cranberry bushes,

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Melt into mirage.

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Icicles too drip remembrance.

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But metaphors of a world asleep

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Fail this place,

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Where even now
affiliated woodpecker

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beats a rhythm of search--

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Repeats day by day, deeper.

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Watch while the
leafless oak opens.

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Beneath the protective
skin of tree

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More hard shelled beings--

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Bark beetles,
exoskeletons of ants.

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Hear the purr of wings landing,

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Jarring rattle as
head recites hunger.

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Watch the red blur of devotion--

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Manic as our soul, our alone.

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Yet steadily each
body maps resilience

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Where survival
turns with planet,

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Chases the sun,

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Wait is a courage
we name winter.

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Beneath ice, mink,
muskrat, and otter swim,

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Stalk sleek shadows of fish.

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Woodland dwellers find
feast each season.

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Oh despair, make
that your gospel.

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Still forest grandmothers,
all roots, trunks, and limbs,

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Uphold their pact

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In rhythm of warm days
and freezing nights.

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Tree roots suction,

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Sap spills through bark wounds.

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Then our tongues,
sticky with spring.

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Then our song.

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But in January,

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We hold this promise:

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While lake eyes shifts,
dark a murmur, a creak.

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Now moonlight falls
on snow crests--

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Always where two touch.

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Night glistens.

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When distant wolf howls,

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Answer comes.

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Imagine the upturned muzzle,

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Body a triangle of sound.

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Hazel eyes, mere slits.

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This reverence-- an
ancient hunger for pack.

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See, too, each black
branch-- limbing, bare,

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suspended in soon.

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How pristine the
listening posture

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of pine marten,
of fisher, of fox.

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Each body cocked to pounce,

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To dive nose first
into snow's secrets,

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To search winter
tunnels for mice.

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We too, poised
like supplicants--

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Rawness of the world
a prayer we read,

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But cannot speak.

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Silence and invocation,

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Heavy as tobacco, sinking into
snow-- into earth's altar.

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Against moon's brilliance
slit your eyes.

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Let warmth of reflected
light fill you,

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That holy, that
glance of tiny gods.

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Make of your hands
an empty globe,

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Your body a vessel
taut as river."

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[APPLAUSE]

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