I want to go on from that book to the next one.
Book called The Lice.
And the title lest you waste time wondering
how one arrived at a title like that,
got a Greek scholar to help me fiddle with I got it
the way I wanted it.
And he said it was close enough to Heraclides.
And this way it reads, all men are
deceived by the appearances of things,
even Homer himself who was the wisest man in Greece.
But he was deceived by boys catching lice.
They said to him what we have caught
and what we have killed we have left behind.
But what is escaped us we bring with us.
It seems to work for all poems but it
worked for this book, which is a kind of descent book--
E S C-- particularly.
And before I get into the poems which
are more typical of the book, I want
to read one which is typical of the theme of the book
but not of the kind of poems that are in it
and not of anything that I'd ever written before
or have written since.
It's a poem that again, if one's talking about the ironies that
go into things one of the private ironies about it
was the fact that it takes-- it was suggested, the form of it
was suggested by a Brazilian Indian creation myth.
And the poem itself is nothing at all like a creation
myth except that it--
I mean in subject.
Formally, it's a kind of mock narrative
but at the same time incantatory.
And so the disparity between what it's doing
and how it does it is ironic.
And you can tell from the title that it's a poem about
an anti--
it's not an anti creation myth.
It's a poem-- it's a mythological poem
about an anti creation, which is a different thing.
And called "The Last One."
Well they made up their minds to be everywhere because why not.
Everywhere was theirs because they thought so.
They was two leaves, they whom the birds despise.
In the middle of stones they made up their minds.
They started to cut.
Well, they cut everything because why not.
Everything was theirs because they thought so.
It fell into its shadows and they took both away.
Some to have, some for burning.
Well, cutting everything they came to the water.
They came to the end of the day, there was one left standing.
They would cut it tomorrow, they went away.
The night gathered in the last branches.
The shadow of the night gathered in the shadow on the water.
The night and the shadow put on the same head.
And it said, now.
Well in the morning they cut the last one.
Like the others the last one felt into its shadow.
It fell into its shadow on the water.
They took it away.
Its shadow stayed on the water.
Well, they shrugged.
They started trying to get the shadow away.
They cut right to the ground, the shadow stayed whole.
They laid boards on it.
The shadow came out on top.
They shone lights on it, the shadow got blacker and clearer.
They exploded the water the shadow rocked.
They built a huge fire on the roots.
They set up black smoke between the shadow and the sun.
The new shadow flowed without changing the old one.
They shrugged, they went away to get stones.
They came back the shadow was growing.
They started setting up stones it was growing.
They looked the other way it went on growing.
They decided they would make a stone out of it.
They took stones to the water they poured them
into the shadow.
They poured them in, they poured them in, the stones vanished.
The shadow was not filled, it went on growing.
That was one day.
The next day was just the same.
It went on growing.
They did all the same things it was just the same.
They decided to take its water from under it.
They took away water, they took it away, the water went down.
The shadow stayed where it was before.
It went on growing.
It grew on to the land.
They started to scrape the shadow with machines.
When it touched the machines it stayed on them.
They started to beat the shadow with sticks.
Where it touched the sticks it stayed on them.
They started to beat the shadow with hands.
Where it touched the hands it stayed on them.
That was another day.
Well, the next day it started about the same.
It went on growing.
They pushed lights into the shadow.
Where the shadow got onto them they went out.
They began to stomp on the edge it got their feet.
And when it got their feet they fell down.
It got into eyes, the eyes went blind.
The ones that fell down it grew over and they vanished.
The ones that went blind and walked into it vanished.
The ones that could see and stood still it
swallowed their shadows.
Then it swallowed them too and they vanished.
Well, the others ran.
The ones that were left went away
to live if it would let them.
They went as far as they could the lucky ones
with their shadows.
To make a--
[APPLAUSE]