WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:18.093 align:middle line:90% 00:00:18.093 --> 00:00:22.530 align:middle line:90% This is "Tyranny of the Moths." 00:00:22.530 --> 00:00:25.260 align:middle line:84% You know that sensation when you're 00:00:25.260 --> 00:00:28.540 align:middle line:84% sitting on a screen porch at night or in a tent, 00:00:28.540 --> 00:00:32.159 align:middle line:84% and moths are doing everything to persuade 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:34.245 align:middle line:90% you to make an opening. 00:00:34.245 --> 00:00:37.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:37.220 --> 00:00:40.740 align:middle line:84% Feathery Moths, flutter around the screen. 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:44.460 align:middle line:90% Unbearable sounds of summer. 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:52.206 align:middle line:84% Oblivious tonight that my reading light is not my day, 00:00:52.206 --> 00:00:56.340 align:middle line:84% stout bodies, cut and bounce near a crack in the screen, 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:59.670 align:middle line:90% and beat inside a paper shade. 00:00:59.670 --> 00:01:04.380 align:middle line:84% Sacraments of a monumental natural presence. 00:01:04.380 --> 00:01:08.030 align:middle line:90% 00:01:08.030 --> 00:01:15.110 align:middle line:84% We are drawn forever by the moths to other lights, 00:01:15.110 --> 00:01:17.045 align:middle line:90% to neighbors down the road. 00:01:17.045 --> 00:01:21.070 align:middle line:90% 00:01:21.070 --> 00:01:25.570 align:middle line:84% I'll read one more as a tribute in memory 00:01:25.570 --> 00:01:35.320 align:middle line:84% to Paul Celan powerful, imagistic poet, whose 00:01:35.320 --> 00:01:41.830 align:middle line:84% great burden of tragic wisdom served in forced labor, 00:01:41.830 --> 00:01:46.390 align:middle line:84% didn't serve, he was sent to forced labor and survived. 00:01:46.390 --> 00:01:48.280 align:middle line:84% And as we all know, the survivors 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:54.480 align:middle line:90% have a special burden of memory. 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:57.450 align:middle line:90% Why me? 00:01:57.450 --> 00:01:59.235 align:middle line:90% It's often a question raised. 00:01:59.235 --> 00:02:02.120 align:middle line:90% 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:08.630 align:middle line:84% And Celan was accused by another concentration camp, work camp 00:02:08.630 --> 00:02:15.230 align:middle line:84% prisoner accused by his wife of plagiarizing her husband's 00:02:15.230 --> 00:02:15.980 align:middle line:90% work. 00:02:15.980 --> 00:02:20.690 align:middle line:84% A total lie and fabrication trying to bring attention 00:02:20.690 --> 00:02:24.840 align:middle line:90% to her and to her husband. 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:28.340 align:middle line:84% He was not a skilled writer, and Paul Celan was-- 00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:34.790 align:middle line:84% it was a terrible envy at a time when any survivor was 00:02:34.790 --> 00:02:37.820 align:middle line:90% terribly vulnerable. 00:02:37.820 --> 00:02:43.190 align:middle line:84% And Celan committed suicide in the Seine River in Paris. 00:02:43.190 --> 00:02:46.540 align:middle line:90% 00:02:46.540 --> 00:02:58.420 align:middle line:84% Paul Celan slow death of images, cities, seasons as war. 00:02:58.420 --> 00:03:03.820 align:middle line:84% The unbearable clear sky, sudden storms of memory, 00:03:03.820 --> 00:03:10.220 align:middle line:84% thunderous breaks of lightning that linger in the eye. 00:03:10.220 --> 00:03:22.480 align:middle line:84% Summer teas, fire trace, stone, sorrow, black memory, 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:31.210 align:middle line:84% no rescues by irony, by prays over silence at the wall. 00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:38.560 align:middle line:84% The wild, restrained by time, and copies of return. 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:43.765 align:middle line:84% Unwary, un-taught in stories, near the end. 00:03:43.765 --> 00:03:46.930 align:middle line:90% 00:03:46.930 --> 00:03:52.540 align:middle line:84% The pleasure of masks, two scenes and wing nothing 00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:54.340 align:middle line:90% is ever lost at night. 00:03:54.340 --> 00:03:56.890 align:middle line:90% 00:03:56.890 --> 00:03:59.350 align:middle line:84% Ruby throated hummingbirds inspire 00:03:59.350 --> 00:04:06.250 align:middle line:84% children to survive one more memorable afternoon by flowers. 00:04:06.250 --> 00:04:08.900 align:middle line:90% 00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:15.140 align:middle line:84% Brown ants haunt an old man, bodies toad brothers, 00:04:15.140 --> 00:04:21.050 align:middle line:84% the ashes of entire ancient families across a continent 00:04:21.050 --> 00:04:22.129 align:middle line:90% on the portal. 00:04:22.129 --> 00:04:25.620 align:middle line:90% 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:33.780 align:middle line:84% Heavy snow, without a voice, covers the city in whispers. 00:04:33.780 --> 00:04:40.188 align:middle line:84% Rumors of silence, trace of poetry by morning. 00:04:40.188 --> 00:04:45.750 align:middle line:84% A mighty rain over the parapets and pinion bottles. 00:04:45.750 --> 00:04:49.990 align:middle line:90% 00:04:49.990 --> 00:04:56.551 align:middle line:84% Black gates of Paris disguised by snow. 00:04:56.551 --> 00:05:03.430 align:middle line:84% Fate shame, not our fate, a patient show of hands. 00:05:03.430 --> 00:05:06.250 align:middle line:90% 00:05:06.250 --> 00:05:11.425 align:middle line:84% Snow mounds touch and shape the doors by memory. 00:05:11.425 --> 00:05:14.120 align:middle line:90% 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:22.805 align:middle line:84% Empty rooms, music in the beans, death in a key. 00:05:22.805 --> 00:05:26.550 align:middle line:90% 00:05:26.550 --> 00:05:35.040 align:middle line:84% That lonesome turn of eyes at the door, the only sovereignty 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:39.600 align:middle line:84% Paul Celan inspires our resistance 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:47.790 align:middle line:84% by state and portrait extremes in the river, dark and cold. 00:05:47.790 --> 00:05:49.560 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:53.510 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:53.510 --> 00:06:03.000 align:middle line:90%