WEBVTT

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And one last poem from
this collection before I

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get on to some very recent ones.

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This one is called "The
Garden of the Gods."

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I get the Garden of the Gods
from The Epic of Gilgamesh,

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which apparently is the
oldest epic in the world,

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and Gilgamesh is wandering,
searching for immortality.

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He's discovered death, and
death very much depresses him,

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and he wants to find
a way to be immortal.

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And this is, what,
Assyrian, is it?

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Something like that.

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And during his
wanderings, he passes

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through the Garden of the Gods.

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And this is one of
those gardens where

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instead of berries and fruit
on the trees and bushes,

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there are jewels.

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I don't mention
Gilgamesh in this poem,

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because actually, I'm speaking
of all mythical gardens--

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the garden in The Epic of
Gilgamesh, the Garden of Eden,

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the Garden of the
Hesperides, the walled garden

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in which the speaker in
medieval dream poems,

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like some of Chaucer's
and many others, wakes up,

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and even the garden
that we enter

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when we take certain drugs.

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So this is about all of them.

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"The Garden of the Gods."

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All plants grow here.

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The most minute, glowing
from turf, is in its place.

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The constant vision of
the race: lawn, orchard,

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deep with flower and
fruit, so bright that some

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who see it near think there
is lapis on the stems,

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and think green,
blue, and crimson gems

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hang from the vines
and briars here.

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They follow path
to path in wonder

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through the intense
and dazzling light.

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Nowhere does blossom
flare so white.

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Nowhere so black is
earth mold under.

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It goes, though
it may come again.

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But if it lasts,
they try to tell,

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they search horror trope
or parallel, and cannot,

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after all, explain.

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It was sufficient there
to be, and meaning, thus,

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was superseded.

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Night circles it.

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It has receded, distant
and difficult to see.

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Where my foot rests,
I hear the creak

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from generations of my
kin, layer on layer,

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pressed-leaf thin.

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They merely are.

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They cannot speak.

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This was the garden's
place of birth.

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I trace it downward from my
mind, through breast and calf.

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I feel it vined and rooted
in the death-rich earth.

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