WEBVTT

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Most of the translations
are by Robin Fulton and some

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by Samuel Charters.

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And here is one, by Robin
Fulton, slightly revised

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by [? Deke ?] himself--

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"Golden Wasp."

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Well, the title is
really a problem

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here because it's an
insect not many know about.

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The name they don't know.

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Most people have
seen these insects,

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but they don't know
the name for it.

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And I don't think you have
exactly the same species

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as we have, but
it's a sort of wasp

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but very brilliant,
gleaming, like a jewel.

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And I have seen two
names for this one.

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One is cuckoo wasp,
which sounds funny.

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And one is golden
wasp, golden wasp.

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So I choose golden wasp.

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Chrysididae is the Latin
name for this insect.

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It's a minor character in
the poem, so don't worry.

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This is more a poem
about the problem

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of how a good, religious
impulse can be perverted.

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"Golden wasp."

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"The blind worm,
that legless lizard,

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flows along the porch step calm
and majestic as an anaconda.

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Only, the size is different.

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The sky is covered with clouds,
but the sun pushes through,

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that kind of day.

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This morning, she
who is dear to me,

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drove away the evil
spirits as when

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you open the door of a dark
shed somewhere in the south

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and the light pours in.

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And the cockroaches dart quick,
quick off into the corners

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and up the walls and are gone.

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You saw them, and
you didn't see them,

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so her nakedness made the demons
run as if they never existed.

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But they will come back
with a thousand hands, which

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make the wrong connections in
the old-fashioned telephone

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exchange of the nerves.

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It's the 5th of July.

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The lupines are stretching
up as if they wanted

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to catch sight of the sea.

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It's the church of
[? terse ?] eternity in piety,

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not according to the
letter, as if the implacable

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faces of the patriarchs didn't
exist and the misspelling

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of God's name in stone.

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I saw it true-to-the-letter
TV preacher who had piled

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in the money.

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But he was weak now
and needed the support

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of a bodyguard, who was
a well-tailored young man

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with a smile tight as a gag.

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A smile stifling a scream,
the scream of a child

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left alone in a
bed in the hospital

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when the parents leave.

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The divine brushes
against the man and lights

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the flame but then draws back.

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Why?

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The flame attracts the shadows.

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They fly rustling into
the flame and join it.

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It rises and blackens,
and the smoke

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spreads out black
and strangling.

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At last, only the black smoke.

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At last, only the
pious executioner.

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The pious executioner
leans forward

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over the square
and the crowd that

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makes a grainy mirror
where he can see himself.

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The greatest fanatic
is the greatest doubter

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without knowing it.

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He is a pact between two
where the one is 100% visible

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and the other, invisible.

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How I hate that expression
'a hundred percent.'

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Those who can never
live anywhere,

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except from their facades, those
who are never absent-minded,

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those who never
open the wrong door

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and catch a glimpse of
the unidentified one,

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walk past them.

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It's the 5th of July.

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The sky is covered with clouds,
but the sun pushes through.

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The blind worm flows along the
porch step calm and majestic

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as an anaconda.

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The blind worm, as if there
were no civil service.

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The golden wasp, as if
there were no idolatry.

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The lupines, as if there
were no 'hundred percent.'

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I know the depths where one
is both prisoner and ruler,

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like Persephone.

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I, often, lay in the
stiff grass there

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and saw the earth arch over
me, the vault of the Earth.

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Often, that's half my life.

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But today, my sight has left me.

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My blindness has gone away.

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The dark bat has left my
face and is scissoring

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in summer's bright space."

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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