WEBVTT

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I'm going to read a passage now
from my next book, Three Poems,

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which is three long prose poems.

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The new spirit, the system,
and the recital are the three.

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And I'm going to read a short
part from the middle one,

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the system.

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In fact, I think that
it's in this passage

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that the word system
occurs for the only time,

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and it's very long,
somewhat tedious poem.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"That's the way it goes.

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For many weeks,
you've been exploring

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what's seen to be a
profitable way of doing.

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You discovered that there
was a fork in the road.

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So first you
followed what seemed

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to be the less promising or
at any rate, the more obvious

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of the two branches
until you felt you had

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a good idea of where it led.

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Then you returned to investigate
the more tangled way.

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And for a time, its
intricacies seemed

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to promise a more
complex and therefore

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a more practical goal for you.

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One that could be picked up
in any number of ways so that

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all its faces or
applications could

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be thoroughly scrutinized.

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And in so doing,
you began to realize

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that the two branches were
joined together again,

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farther ahead.

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That this place of joining
was indeed the end,

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that it was the very
place you set out

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from whose intolerable
mixture of reality and fantasy

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had started you on the road
which is now come full circle.

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It has been an absorbing puzzle.

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But in the end, all
the pieces fit together

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like a ghost story
that turns out

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to have a perfectly
rational explanation.

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Nothing remains,
but to begin living

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with this discovery, that is
without the hope mentioned

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above.

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Even this is not so easy,
for the reduced mode or scope

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must itself be nourished
by a form of hope or hope

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that doesn't take
itself seriously.

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One must move very fast in
order to stay in the same place

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as the Red Queen said.

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The reason being that
once you have decided

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there is no alternative
to remaining motionless,

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you must still learn to cope
with the onrushing tide of time

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and all the confusing
phenomena it bears in its wake;

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some of which perfectly resemble
the unfinished but seemingly

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salvageable states of
reality it cross-purposes

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with itself that first
caused you to grow restless.

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To begin fidgeting with various
impractical schemes that

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were in the end we have seen
finally reduced to zero.

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Yet they cannot be banished
from the system any more than

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physical matter can, and their
nature which is part and parcel

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of their existence is
to remain incomplete,

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clamoring for wholeness.

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So that now two quite other
and grimmer alternatives

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present themselves, that
of staying where you are

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and risking eventual
destruction at the hands

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of those dishonest
counselors of many aspects,

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or being swept back
by them into a past

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drenched in nostalgia whose
sweetness burns like gall.

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And it is a choice
that we have to make.

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As a lost dog on the edge
of a sidewalk timidly

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approaches first one
passerby and then another,

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uncertain of what to ask for,
taking a few embarrassing steps

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in one direction and then
suddenly veering to another

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before being able to ascertain
what reception his mute

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and treaty might have met
with, lost, puzzled, ashamed,

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ready to slink back
into his inner confusion

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at the first brush
with the outside world.

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So your aspirations my soul
on this busy thoroughfare that

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is the great highway of life.

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What do you think
to gain there merely

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standing there looking worried
while the tide of humanity

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sweeps ever onward
toward some goal?

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It gives every sign of being
as intimately acquainted

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with as you are
with a sharp edge

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problems that beset
you from every angle.

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Do you really think
that if you succeed

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in looking pathetic enough,
some kindly stranger

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will stop to ask your
name and address,

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and then steer you
safely to your very door?

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No, I do not think
you were afflicted

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with that kind of presumption.

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And yet your pitiable waif
stance, that inquiring

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look that darts uneasily
from side to side

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as though to ward off a blow.

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Please do not
argue in your favor

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even though we both know you to
be a strong upright character,

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far above such cheap attempts to
play on the emotions of others.

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And there is no use
trying to tell them

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that the touching
melancholy of your stare

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is the product, not of
self-pity but of a lucid attempt

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to find out just where you
stand in the fast-moving stream

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of traffic that flows endlessly
from horizon to horizon

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like a dark river.

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We know that the pose you happen
to be striking for the world

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to see matters nothing to you.

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It could just as easily
be some other one,

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joyous-looking, or haughty,
and overbearing, or whatever.

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It is only that you happened
to be wearing this look as you

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arrived at the end of your
perusal of the way left open

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to you, and it froze on you
just as your mother warned you

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it would when you were little.

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And now it is the face
you show to the world.

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The face of expectancy,
strange as it seems.

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Perhaps Child Roland
wore such a look

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as he drew nearer
to the Dark Tower,

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every energy concentrated toward
the encounter with the King

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of elf land, reasonably certain
of the victorious outcome

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yet not so much as to erase
the premature lines of care

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from his pail and
tear-stained face.

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Maybe it is just that you
don't want to out rage anyone,

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especially now that the
moment of your own encounter

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seems to be getting closer.

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You can feel it in every
pore in a sudden hush that

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falls over the din
of the busy street

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and the unusual
darkness in the sky,

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even though no
clouds are apparent.

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Your miserable premature
spring has finally

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turned into the real thing
confirmed by the calendar.

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But what a sad look
it wears, especially

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after its promising
beginnings that now

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seem so far back in the past.

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The air is moist
and almost black,

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and sharp with the chill.

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The Magnolia petals flatten and
fall off one after the other

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onto the half-frozen
mud of the ground where

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only a few spears of
sickly green grass

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have managed to
lift their heads.

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All this comes as no surprise.

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It is even somewhat of a relief,
and better than the dire sequel

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that those precocious moments
seem to promise, cataclysms

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instead of the ominous hush
that now lies over everything.

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And who is to say whether or not
this silence isn't the very one

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you requested so as
to be able to speak.

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Perhaps it seems
ominous only because it

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is concentrating so intensely on
you and what you have to say."

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