WEBVTT

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And the last poem I'll read
comes from two sources.

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One is the Italian
philosopher, Agamben

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who notes in a wonderful
book, Profanations

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that one way to know that
in the classical world

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that you're dead is that you
keep doing the same thing over

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and over again.

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And the other is
an old, old tale

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of Tantalus and his
bending down to drink

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and the water withdrawing
and his reaching up to eat

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and the fruit disappearing.

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And that in the afterlife,
Orpheus, this is poet saw this,

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sympathized.

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Then he sang a song, and
for as long as Orpheus sang,

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Tantalus could drink and eat.

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Arcadian, "I could not
stop my hands clapping.

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I clapped and clapped.

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I clapped as in the
dirt, the bird collapsed.

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As worms grew wings, I clapped.

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A man stood in a river,
balancing a grape on his lips.

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His tears fell in the
current, swept them away.

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He kept performing his
trick, grape hovering

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over the whole of his open
mouth, and never dropping in.

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I clapped, and I could
not stop my hands

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from wanting to cover my
mouth, but they would not.

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They clapped.

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And I listened to them clap.

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And noise that if there were
woods, would echo in the woods.

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But there were no woods.

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I could see only a
man, twigs in his hair,

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bent over the water where
the water stood most still.

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A tree fell in the woods.

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He kept speaking
to his own face.

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Is true if, and only if a tree
fell in the woods is true.

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If and only if he kept speaking
to his face in the water

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as I clapped, applauding the
logic that needed no belief.

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Like the shadows of
bird's wings, the shadows

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of my hands on the ground.

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If there were birds, I
could believe in the birds.

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So I let myself look up.

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One bird kept
exploding in the sky.

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One flower kept dying.

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"Isn't it happy?"

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A child asked.

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Everything eating the
son, isn't it happy?

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Isn't it?

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She asked, laying down
on her back in the grass

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happy everything eating
the sun, Isn't it?"

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Thank you.

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