My name is Paudrigotuma and I worked in conflict resolution for a long time.

I remember one time years ago somebody said, you know conflict resolution lasts for a moment and then you go back and you do the dishes or you get on the boring bus to the boring job or you go to the thing you don't want to do.

And what he was saying was so interesting because it said that sometimes there's these elevated moments that remind you this is what life can be and then ordinary stuff continues on.

But it's not like those things are worthless, those things are in conversation in some kind of concert with the ordinary

moments. We can see how an elevated moment can have a message for the everyday moment

too.

Breath by Carl Dennis It's humbling to dwell on the need for taking in a mouthful of air a dozen times a minute,

whether we want to or not, whether the air available blows in from a mountain meadow or from a swamp.

Still, I'm proud of the deep breaths that our featured speaker tonight is taking

while she waits to be introduced.

Her voice mustn't quaver as she exposes the lies told about our water and soil and air,

the claims they're as clean as they've ever been.

Though she doesn't believe her words will be wafted around the world

on an irresistible tide of spirit, at least she believes that her audience will try to give

them a fair hearing if she can deliver them with authority.

When I think of what can be done with a single breath, I think of the

soloist in the old recording I own on 78's of Mozart's Obo Concerto, of his sudden intake of breath at a silent beat to fail his lungs

for a soaring passage. I hope our speaker's faith this evening in the worth of her contribution is akin to the

faith of the musician as he sends his theme finally phrased out through the double reads.

May it meet with good luck on its unpredictable journey, writing farther than many suppose a theme can ride on a puff of air. Oh, You can argue that every poem has a relationship with time, but this one has a very particular relationship with time, right from the opening.

It's humbling to dwell on the need for taking in a mouthful of air a dozen times a minute.

So immediately we're thinking about a minute and then a dozen times within that minute, five seconds.

...