WEBVTT

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The other poem that
I want to read,

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a connection with that one I
said it's another animal poem,

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but it's not the
animal speaking.

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It's some counterpart of the
animal speaking to its own,

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I suppose the
projection of itself,

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but a projection of some part
of itself that it wants to be,

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or that it wants to be connected
with and is uncertain of.

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And I don't think
I need to say more

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about it than to say that it's
a poem in the form of a prayer

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the way many of the Psalms are.

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And the title and
the dramatic approach

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of the poem come from this line
of that long marvelous elusive

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poem of Christopher Smart's,
"Jubilate Agno, Rejoice

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in the Lamb."

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And the fact that it is the
lamb is partly ironic to this,

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as part of the irony of
this particular choice

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of a single line.

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The line goes, to
think of the lamb--

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"Let Lemuel bless
wolf the wolf, which

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is a dog without a master.

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But the Lord hears his cries
and feeds him in the desert."

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Firmament is called
Lemuel's blessing.

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You that know the way, spirit.

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I bless your ears,
which are like cypresses

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on a mountain with
their roots in wisdom.

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Let me approach.

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I bless your paws and
their twenty nails,

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which tell their own prayer
and are like dice and command

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of their own combinations.

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Let me not be lost.

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I bless your eyes for
which I know no comparison.

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Run with me like the
horizon for without you I

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am nothing but a
dog lost and hungry,

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ill natured,
untrustworthy, useless.

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My bones together bless you
like an orchestra of flutes.

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Divert the weapons
of the settlements

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and lead their dogs a dance.

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Where a dog is shameless
and wears civility

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in his tail like a banner.

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Let me wear the
opprobrium of possessed

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and possesses as a
thick tail properly

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used to warm my worst
and my best parts.

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My tail and my laugh bless you.

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Lead me past the error at
the fork of hesitation.

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Deliver me from the
roof of the lair, which

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clings to me in
the morning painful

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when I move like a trap.

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Even debris has its
favorite positions

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but they are not yours.

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From the roof of kindness
with its licked hands,

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I have sniffed baited fingers
and followed toward necessities

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which were not my own.

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It would make me a
habitué way of back steps,

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faithful custodian of fat sheep.

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From a roof of prepared comforts
with its habitual dishes

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sporting my name and its
collars and leashes of vanity,

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from a roof of approval
with its nets, kennels,

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and taxidermists,
it would use my guts

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for its own rackets
and instruments

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to play its own games and music.

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Teach me to recognize
its platforms which

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are constructed like scaffold.

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From the roof of known paths,
which would use my feet, tail,

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and ears as curios, my head
is a nest for tame ants,

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my fate is a warning.

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I have hidden at wrong
times for wrong reasons,

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I have been brought
to bay more than once.

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Another time if I need
it, create a little wind

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like a cold finger between my
shoulders, then let my nails

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pour out a torrent
of aces like grain

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from a threshing machine that
fatigue, weather, the old bones

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finally be nothing to me.

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Let all lights but
yours be nothing to me.

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Let the memory of tongues not
unnerve me so that I stumble

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or quake.

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But lead me at times
beside the still waters.

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There when I crouch
to drink let me

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catch a glimpse of
your image before it

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is obscured with my own.

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Preserve my eyes which
are irreplaceable.

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Preserve my heart, veins, bones
against the slow death building

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in them like hornets until
the place is entirely theirs.

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Preserve my tongue and I will
bless you again and again.

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Let my ignorance and my
failings remain far behind me

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like tracks made in a wet season
at the end of which I have

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vanished so that those who track
me for their own twisted ends

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may be rewarded only with
ignorance and failing.

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But let me leave my
cry stretched out

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behind me like a road on
which I have followed you.

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And sustain me for
my time in the desert

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on what is essential to me.

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