WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.180 align:middle line:90% "Letter from the Ruins." 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:04.980 align:middle line:84% It may be difficult from where you 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:09.840 align:middle line:84% are to imagine the Latin Americanization of New York, 00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:12.810 align:middle line:84% the photos of the disappeared in the streets, 00:00:12.810 --> 00:00:18.240 align:middle line:84% the terror in the air, shrines and altars on every corner, 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:22.770 align:middle line:84% notes left for Paulo Morales, Carmen Rivera, 00:00:22.770 --> 00:00:25.680 align:middle line:84% Kenny Lira, the city inscribed 00:00:25.680 --> 00:00:28.020 align:middle line:84% with messages and letters to the missing, 00:00:28.020 --> 00:00:31.590 align:middle line:84% the dead who float like a presence in the air. 00:00:31.590 --> 00:00:34.440 align:middle line:84% On the other side of the world in Afghanistan, 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:37.830 align:middle line:84% women persecuted by the Taliban risk their lives 00:00:37.830 --> 00:00:41.610 align:middle line:84% by writing and teaching other women to read. 00:00:41.610 --> 00:00:44.670 align:middle line:84% These messages become interwoven and rise 00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:48.870 align:middle line:84% as a common prayer against violence and tyranny. 00:00:48.870 --> 00:00:51.330 align:middle line:84% How does Santiago's pollution compare 00:00:51.330 --> 00:00:56.670 align:middle line:84% with air inhaled at the foot of the disappeared skyscrapers? 00:00:56.670 --> 00:00:59.220 align:middle line:84% The smell of those who have been sacrificed 00:00:59.220 --> 00:01:03.600 align:middle line:84% impregnates everything from the subway to the mouths, 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:05.519 align:middle line:90% mucous membranes. 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:09.150 align:middle line:84% You asked me not to speak of physical effects. 00:01:09.150 --> 00:01:14.730 align:middle line:84% But to what extent is a smell, the trace of an act, physical? 00:01:14.730 --> 00:01:18.240 align:middle line:84% In India, a smell is absence transfigured, 00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:21.690 align:middle line:84% a desire that manifests and projects as potential 00:01:21.690 --> 00:01:25.110 align:middle line:90% of other future outcomes. 00:01:25.110 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:84% In the Kaushitaki Upanishad, air sacrifices itself 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:84% as it enters the lungs, and sound sacrifices itself 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:35.040 align:middle line:90% as word. 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:36.990 align:middle line:90% Every act is a sacrifice. 00:01:36.990 --> 00:01:40.920 align:middle line:84% And we are all sacrificing ourselves each for the other. 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:44.760 align:middle line:84% And perhaps this is the body's infinite dimension-- death 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:46.500 align:middle line:90% and dissolution. 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:49.620 align:middle line:84% Here in New York, the world has changed, 00:01:49.620 --> 00:01:52.060 align:middle line:84% and it cannot be described in a few words. 00:01:52.060 --> 00:01:55.710 align:middle line:84% It must be seen and felt. The Vedas 00:01:55.710 --> 00:01:59.580 align:middle line:84% say writing serves only to verify or reencounter 00:01:59.580 --> 00:02:01.230 align:middle line:90% what we already see. 00:02:01.230 --> 00:02:06.640 align:middle line:84% La ver dad es ver dadera porque se verá. 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:12.930 align:middle line:84% Verdad equals ver, infinitive, to see, plus dar, imperative, 00:02:12.930 --> 00:02:14.340 align:middle line:90% to give. 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:18.660 align:middle line:84% New Yorkers call the void left by the skyscrapers 00:02:18.660 --> 00:02:22.370 align:middle line:84% a hole, the hole through which the world's web unravels. 00:02:22.370 --> 00:02:24.960 align:middle line:90% 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:28.230 align:middle line:84% Inscribed on the threshold of the ancient oracle-- 00:02:28.230 --> 00:02:30.600 align:middle line:90% oracle, know thyself. 00:02:30.600 --> 00:02:34.230 align:middle line:84% Every gesture, every instant, is a threshold. 00:02:34.230 --> 00:02:37.660 align:middle line:84% And we choose to see or not to see. 00:02:37.660 --> 00:02:41.430 align:middle line:84% But if we do not see, we can come to see. 00:02:41.430 --> 00:02:44.550 align:middle line:84% In transformation is possibility. 00:02:44.550 --> 00:02:48.240 align:middle line:84% "I dwell in possibility, a fairer 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:52.770 align:middle line:84% house than prose, more numerous of windows, 00:02:52.770 --> 00:02:55.560 align:middle line:90% superior, for doors." 00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:57.780 align:middle line:90% --Emily Dickinson. 00:02:57.780 --> 00:03:01.920 align:middle line:84% US poets, as well as those who wrote letters and messages 00:03:01.920 --> 00:03:05.490 align:middle line:84% to the disappeared, are the few dissenting voices here 00:03:05.490 --> 00:03:08.430 align:middle line:90% that plead for peace not war. 00:03:08.430 --> 00:03:12.060 align:middle line:84% Perhaps from fine dust and the persecution of writing 00:03:12.060 --> 00:03:16.590 align:middle line:84% will emerge a new fusion of action and poetry 00:03:16.590 --> 00:03:21.300 align:middle line:84% a new ethic of conduct for which beauty and fairness 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:23.370 align:middle line:90% are the only altar. 00:03:23.370 --> 00:03:26.670 align:middle line:84% The Sunday before 9/11, I was writing in my notebook 00:03:26.670 --> 00:03:31.200 align:middle line:84% at the edge of the East River in Long Island City watching 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:33.420 align:middle line:90% dusk fall over Manhattan. 00:03:33.420 --> 00:03:37.410 align:middle line:84% As I wrote "give love in every exchange," 00:03:37.410 --> 00:03:41.760 align:middle line:84% a cloud enflamed with light settled against the silhouette 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:43.350 align:middle line:90% of skyscrapers. 00:03:43.350 --> 00:03:47.430 align:middle line:84% It took the form of a pink eye and stared at us. 00:03:47.430 --> 00:03:52.650 align:middle line:84% Then it dissolved and resumed its path as fleeting cloud. 00:03:52.650 --> 00:03:57.330 align:middle line:84% The oldest poem known to man inscribed in an Egyptian tomb 00:03:57.330 --> 00:04:01.440 align:middle line:90% says "let me see your beauty." 00:04:01.440 --> 00:04:05.460 align:middle line:84% Mahatma Gandhi said "an eye for an eye 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:08.510 align:middle line:90% leaves the whole world blind." 00:04:08.510 --> 00:04:10.000 align:middle line:90%