WEBVTT

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I'll read four more poems,
if you can stand that many.

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This next one is a
poem about something

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very difficult to talk about,
about the way we acquire

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knowledge intuitively, which
sounds a little pompous

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right for a start.

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But it's something
that does happen.

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I mean, it is not
only in rational ways

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that one acquires knowledge.

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It is not only by observation.

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There are certain things that
come to one in curious ways.

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It's called "Wrestling
with Angels."

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Now, angels-- oh, I don't know
whether in Hebrew or Greek,

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but in one of those
languages, it meant messenger.

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And originally, an angel was
not a gorgeous Renaissance

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thing with wings, it
was a messenger from God

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who looked like a human being.

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Maybe a little strange,
maybe something

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a little sinister about him or
fae in the old Scottish word.

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But, different.

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When Jacob wrestled
with the angel--

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and I'm referring to
that in the title--

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it's "Wrestling with Angels."

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Jacob-- I don't
think knew at first

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that it was an angel
until the angel won.

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And I mean angels here
as being supernatural

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and as being messengers
from something

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beyond man's knowledge.

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I also refer to a palimpsest.

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A palimpsest is a--

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well, let me start
sentence again.

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In early medieval
times when they

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used to write on parchments,
parchments were actually

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dried goat skins, I think.

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And they would write on
them with a sharp stylus,

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a sharp pen.

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And some, maybe a couple
of hundred years later,

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people would think--

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parchment being short--
they would think,

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well, I don't need
that writing anymore.

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Let's wipe it all out and
use it all over again,

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as was possible.

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Maybe this would happen yet
again as fashions changed

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and people felt their--

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the things they needed
to read might change.

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However, this
stylus was so sharp

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that by holding it
up to the light,

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you can still see the other
things that were written there.

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So you get two or three or
even four different levels

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of writing, which is sometimes
difficult to decipher

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but they can be deciphered.

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And this is known
as a palimpsest.

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It all fits in.

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"Wrestling with Angels."

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For Robert Duncan.

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Discourse of sun and
moon fire and beginnings

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behind words the
illuminated words.

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A palimpsest the discourse
having been erased and replaced

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with words of a roll.

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But if you hold the
parchment to light,

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you may see the discourse
where the stylus pressed

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the fat, where it has always
held continuing luminous

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behind.

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The covering script,
transparent to it.

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No secret.

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Clear.

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Still.

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Like a high window
you never noticed.

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It lets in light.

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Continual discourse of angels,
and sons of angels, of semen,

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of beginnings, lucid
accounts of flight,

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arms for wings, a tale of
wrestling with a stranger,

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a stranger like a
man, like a messenger.

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Loping compact in
familiar places,

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he moves with that
separate grace,

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that sureness afoot you
know in animal and angel.

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Messages from sun
and moon picked up

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on waves, interpreted.

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The sun and moon for signs
for seasons hang in darkness.

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Visible mysteries.

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Fire and reflected fire.

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Language of tides and seasons.

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Luminous discourse.

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Telling about beginnings.

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