WEBVTT

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Two later poems from the
end of that collection,

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latter part of that collection,
"A Letter to Su T'ung Po."

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Su T'ung Po was a great
poet of the early Song

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dynasty in China, a very,
very remarkable man,

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and as many people were
in the Song dynasty,

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he was exiled for whims
of the imperial court

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and spent a lot
of time traveling

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on the rivers in China.

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This is a wonderful poem.

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It refers to a poem of his,
moonlight, the moonlight

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as the boat is moving forward
a long, long way from home.

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"Almost a thousand
years later, I

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am asking the same
questions you did,

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the ones you kept finding
yourself returning

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to as though nothing had
changed except the tone of them,

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the tone of their
echo growing deeper

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and what you knew
of the coming of age

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before you had grown old.

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I do not know any more
now than you did then

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about what you were
asking as I sit at night

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above the hushed valley,
thinking of you on your river,

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that one bright
sheet of moonlight

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in the dream of the water
birds, and I hear the silence

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after your questions.

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How old are the
questions tonight."

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I want to read two or three of
the newer poems, newest poems,

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and then go back and read one
more from that manuscript.

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How are we doing for time?

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I don't know.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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Have I lost it?

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OK.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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"Alba"-- this is a
new poem, recent one.

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"Climbing in the mist,
I came to a terrace wall

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and saw above it to small
field of broad beans in flower.

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Their white fragrance was
flowing through the first light

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of morning there a little
way up the mountain

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where I had made my way
through the olive groves

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and under the blossoming
boughs of the almonds,

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above the old hut of the
charcoal burner, where suddenly

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the scent of the bean
flowers found me.

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And as I took the next
step, I heard the creak

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of the harness and
the mule's shod hooves

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striking stones in
the furrow and then

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the low voice of the
man talking softly,

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praising the mule
as he walked behind

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through the cloud in his
white shirt along the row.

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And between his own words, he
was singing under his breath

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a few phrases at a
time of the same song,

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singing it to his
mule, it seemed,

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as I listened,
watching their breaths

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and not understanding a word."

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