WEBVTT

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Now, my only translation.

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This is a phony translation.

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It was occasioned by the
fact that all the poets

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of the '60s, it seemed,
were translating poems.

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And I was a very
bad linguist, which

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is a pretentious way of saying
that I, a bit scarcely, passed

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first-year French.

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But this is called "After
the Anonymous Swedish"

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because I figured that since
I'm nearly all Swedish,

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there's something,
in Jungian terms,

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in my racial memory that would
cause me to be able to write

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a Swedish poem, even
though my two Swedish

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words are "lutefisk"
and "Stockholm,"

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as I told the class.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But this is called "After the
Anonymous Swedish," and then,

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in parentheses, "17th century,"
which makes it more convincing.

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It also covers my tracks in
case anybody's looking for it.

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But maybe you'll think,
as I hope I still do,

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that this sounds
like a Swedish poem.

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I was terribly serious
when I wrote it.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"After the Anonymous Swedish."

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"Deep in the forest,
there is a pond, small,

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shaded by a pine so tall its
shadow crosses her surface.

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The water is cold
and dark and clear.

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Let it preserve those
who lie at the bottom,

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invisible to us
in perpetual dark.

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It is our heaven, this
bottomless water that

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will keep us forever still.

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Though hands might
barely touch, they'll

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never wander up an arm in
caress or lift a drink.

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We'll lie with the swords
and bones of our fathers

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on a bed of silt
and pine needles.

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In our night, we'll
wait for those

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who walk the green and turning
Earth, our brothers, even

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the birds and deer, who
always float down to us

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with alarmed and startled eyes."

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Anyone who has seen
Bergman's Magician

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knows that that's
a Swedish poem.

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