WEBVTT

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In a little story poem called
"From The Gray Legends."

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You know the story
that you've been

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told in the mythology books.

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Now, mythology does
change all the time.

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And this changes that
story a little bit.

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But it takes the same
cast of characters,

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with apology to the unions.

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You know what I mean?

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"From The Gray Legends" "Arachne
wove the gray before daylight.

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From beyond the scent--

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from beyond the screen of
fronds, before the birds,

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before words, before the
first stories, before voices.

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Before Minerva's eyes were
made of that same gray,

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Arachne had her own
beauty, seen or unseen.

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And as she was older, she
was already who she was.

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Then it was day,
and Minerva wove

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in the daylight from daylight.

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And she knew where
the threads were

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going in their stories, some
of them, some of the time.

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And she claimed that
she always knew.

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Arachne claimed nothing.

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Arachne did not have to know.

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She could wait, even
when she was forgotten.

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And she could wait
to be forgotten.

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Minerva kept seeing
Arachne's weaving,

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waiting in the daylight,
with the daylight passing

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through it.

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The weaving reminded
Minerva of something

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she could not see there,
that she could not remember.

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Arachne's weaving, even where it
was broken, was always perfect.

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With a perfection that Minerva
could not trace nor imitate.

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Her own wisdom laughed at
her, and she was angry.

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What could she do to
Arachne, who could

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weave the gray before daylight?

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She started the story about
a contest between them,

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which she won weaving daylight.

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And then what could
she do to Arachne

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to obliterate her, to forget
her as though she had never

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existed?

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All day in Minerva's own
mind in her own weaving,

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in her own dream, she
could not imagine a way

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to unmake Arachne.

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All night, her own bird
answered only, 'Who?'

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The bird knew she could
not change Arachne

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into anything but Arachne.

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In the gray before day, wherever
Minerva's gray eyes turned,

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she saw Arachne's weaving."