WEBVTT

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This is a poem called
Merlin after Merlin

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the magician inspired
by TH White's great book

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The Once and Future King.

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And what struck me about
the figure of Merlin

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is the fact that he's a man who
moves backwards through time

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beginning as an old man
and gradually growing

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younger, forgetting
his life as it happens,

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remembering what will happen
only until it happens,

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and then it's lost forever.

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Merlin.

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The grass rose like
a dream around him.

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The names divided in
the story he had chosen.

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Some are disguises, others
the beginnings of themselves.

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Only a few go all the way.

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Another story began.

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Clear and full of
silence, he grew younger.

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When they move into each other,
you cannot be sure where you

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are or what is supposed
to happen next.

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The pale stars tilted
above him like a chart.

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Only what is remembered is real.

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Something like singing
met him by the water.

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In the shape of no
song he could remember.

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When you hear one, it is yours.

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The story divided another began.

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An open window, a cave
of wind, the long grass

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between the forest and those
fields like a dream of sleep

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inside a dream, like the
shape of dark water unraveling

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into the Earth, the song
covered him with the words

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that it knew.

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