WEBVTT

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Whatever truth these
two people embody--

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and again, I stress
that it is the truth

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that I most respect in any that
I have found in human beings

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so far--

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they also have something else,
which I respect but cannot

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share, an unawareness
of their importance.

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They're in some way
symbolic beings.

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And part of their
importance to me

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is that they don't quite
know how important they

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are, what they stand
for, what they're

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doing what they are custodians
of nor it seems are they aware.

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But who are I or who
was anyone to say

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are they aware of the actual
facts of their ordeal,

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of the conditions
in which one is

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expected to undergo one's life?

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And this to this extent I
can share it like all of us

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must but mostly we are unaware
of the stages of the ordeal--

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we are born, we
grow up, we mature,

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we love, we reproduce,
we fight, we die,

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always dying is the
end of the experiment.

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And we must put this
knowledge away from us,

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postpone it if we are to
live in a way which is not

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intolerable except
for certain moments

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when the process in which we are
involved presents itself to us

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directly exactly as what it
is and we surprise ourselves

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as what we are.

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And this kind of
sacramental moment

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has led me on many occasions
to be more aware of what

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is going on and to,
of course, write poems

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about reality as cost
in these nodal points.

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And I'm going to read a few
short poems of this kind.

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The first is called
"Chrysalides."

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It concerns that
curious moment-- it

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was my first, as I remember
my first personal contact

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with the opponent, the
process, the ordeal, whatever

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one wishes to call us.

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At a point after
finishing high school

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or the equivalent of high
school as it was in Ireland--

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secondary-- one has
finished basic education,

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one hasn't quite
begun to live, one

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hasn't begun to earn one's
keep, one is not quite grown up

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but is no longer a child.

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It is a curious
intermediate pause

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in life characterized by a
sort of lavishness hesitancy.

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And in the image of the title
of the poem "Chrysalides"

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it is I see it as the
final stage of the growth

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of the personality.

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We are in the chrysalis
stage at this point

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just before the chrysalis breaks
open to reveal the final state

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of the personality.

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"Our last free summer we
mooned about at odd hours

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pedaling slowly
through country towns,

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stopping to eat chocolate and
fruit, tracing of the galleries

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on the map.

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At night we watched in
the barn to the lurch

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of melodious music, the
crunching boots of countrymen

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huge and weightless
as their shadows

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twirling and leaping
over the yellow concrete.

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Sleeping too little or
too much we awoke at noon

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and were received
with womanly mockery

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into the kitchen like
calves poking our faces

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in with enormous hunger.

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Daily we strapped
our saddle bags

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and went to experience a
tolerance we shall never

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know again.

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Confusing for the
last time for example,

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the lysate and the familiar.

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Our instinct blurred with
change, a strange wakefulness

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sapped our energies and
dulled our slow beating

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hearts to the extremes of
feeling insensitive or light

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to the unique succession
of our youthful midnight

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when by a window ablaze
softly with the virgin moon,

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dry scones, and jugs of
milk awaited us in the dark.

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Or to lasting horror, a
wedding slight of ants spawning

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to its death, a
mute perspiration

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glistening like drops of
copper agonized in our path."

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